Founder & Director of AcumenIST Dr. Steffi Friedrichs moderated a panel discussion at the 2023 EuroNanoForum, held from the 11th to the 13th of June in Sweden.
The event is held every other year and provides a precious opportunity for representatives from academia, industry, and policy to discuss developments on nanotechnologies in an open forum. This year it focused on global competition of industries driven by new technologies across the world and on enabling citizens to actively support these technologies as they make a difference to their daily life, with a strong emphasis on the purpose of research and innovation, toward trust in science and progress.
A short lecture by Philippe Jacques, coordinator of the new Advanced Materials Initiative 2030 (AMI2030) opened the panel and five additional experts of materials’ research and innovation (R&I) exchanged ideas and planned provisions of the initiative under the topic of ‘Empowering Europe’s Green & Digital Future: AMI2030’s Strategic Materials Agenda paves the Way for inclusive and accelerated Advanced Materials Innovation’.
The debate then moved onto the main challenges and expectations of AMI2030 to accelerate advanced materials innovation in Europe. Speaker Jari Kinaret, in particular, noted that “disruptive innovation based on new materials requires collaboration across disciplinary and geographical boundaries”, as a result: “a partnership bringing together key players from the industrial and academic communities in this field is the most efficient way to convert research results to prosperity in Europe”.
As highlighted by the Green Deal objectives, advanced materials are both an important academic research field and a key industrial segment for Europe. The widespread use of these materials in virtually all other industries results in a sort of leverage effect – especially when it comes to new functionalities and the ability to support, with research and innovations in advanced materials being directly correlated to people’s wellbeing, economic prosperity, and greener futures.
