Photonics and nanotechnologies are highly multi-disciplinary fields and two of the principal enabling technologies for the 21st century. They are key technology drivers for industry sectors such as information technologies, communication, biotechnologies, transport, and manufacturing. Photonics/nanophotonics and nanomaterials/nanotechnologies can benefit from each other in terms of new functions, materials, fabrication processes and applications. The MONA Roadmap identifies potential synergies between photonics/nanophotonics and nanomaterials/nanotechnologies. The challenge of mastering nanoelectronics and nanophotonics science and technologies at an industrial scale is of utmost strategic importance for the competitiveness of the European industry in a global context.
Posts Tagged ‘sensors’
EFP Brief No. 158: MONA: A European Roadmap for Photonics and Nanotechnologies
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011EFP Brief No. 157: Roadmap Robotics for Healthcare
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011The main aim of this study was to provide key research policy recommendations for the application of robotics in healthcare in the research programmes of the EC. The study also aimed at raising awareness about important new developments in this field among a wider audience. To this extent, a roadmap of promising applications of robotics in healthcare and associated R&D was developed, taking into account the state of the art as well as short and long-term future possibilities with a time horizon ending in 2025.
EFP Brief No. 152: Combining ICT and Cognitive Science: Opportunities and Risks
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011Many experts think that the technological convergence of previously separated sciences like nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technologies and cognitive sciences will have a deep, long-term impact on society and economy. Key actors in society need to become aware of the challenges linked to converging applications (CA) and take decisions in support of developing them. By analysing CA-related opportunities and risks at a very early stage, we hope to contribute to reducing possible adverse effects in the future.
EFP Brief No. 145: Constructing Dark Scenarios for Privacy Policy Formulation
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011In the last few decades, scenarios have provided a way of analysing the implications of alternative futures, especially as they might be impacted by new technologies. This has been no less true of ambient intelligence (AmI), which may be embedded everywhere in the not so distant future. Most of the scenarios developed by AmI enthusiasts have been rather “sunny”, showing how new technologies promise to make our lives more productive and enriching. A European project called SWAMI (Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence) deliberately developed “dark scenarios” to highlight the threats to privacy, identity, trust and security and inclusiveness posed by new technologies. This brief describes the SWAMI scenarios and the methodology used to construct and analyse them.
EFP Brief No. 120: Opportunities in Innovation for the Dutch Defence Industry
Friday, May 20th, 2011Under the influence of (inter)national technological, political and economic developments, the defence industry is increasingly intertwined with and developing towards a civil industry. Consequently, the political responsibilities, attitude and measurements are changing for both the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. An analysis of the Dutch defence industry helped to determine the main innovative opportunities of the industry and to identify the complementary technological competences needed to make the most of these opportunities. Also strategic vision, including options for innovation policy, was developed.
EFP Brief No. 118: Austria’s Futures: Past Perspectives and Present Expectations
Friday, May 20th, 2011The Brief covers a foresight exercise that is unique in so far as it revisits the projections and scenarios of a historical foresight undertaken in Austria in 1983 for the challenges and changes that Austria would have to meet up to the year 2005. Not only are these sce-narios revisited but also compared to the reality of 2005. In a further step, a second foresight activity of this kind was started to build scenarios for Austria’s future in 2025. The experts of 1983 saw the microelectronic revolution as the technological pacemaker of the future and 20 years later tried to assess the actual impact of this technological progress on various parts of Austrian life.
EFP Brief No. 115: SMART Perspectives of European Materials Research
Friday, May 20th, 2011Modern materials sciences take as their objective to develop and tailor materials with a desired set of properties suitable for a given application. Next to conventional approaches, predictive modelling and simulation is more and more used. This results into a rapidly increasing knowledge base, allowing for more precise experimental set-ups, more precise simulations and tailoring of goal-oriented materials. They play a key role in the value chain and in product innovation. Although limited profits are made from materials, materials are technology enablers for new high added value products and therefore a key in innovation acceleration. More success and increased opportunities for applications is the outcome. The SMART project aimed at providing support for future strategic decisions in this sector to foster the strengthening of the European Research Area.
EFP Brief No. 100: Potential for Biomimetics in Austria
Friday, May 20th, 2011The field of biomimetics (biomimicry, bionics) has in recent years gained scientific acceptance and standing, and has become an innovative research area at academic institutions and in industry worldwide. Many promising solutions for challenging complexity and future-oriented technologies with a wide range of applications have been inspired by nature. This study aimed to investigate the cur-rent status and level of activities in the field of biomimetics in Austria and to identify its potential for the future nationwide.
EFP Brief No. 99: Luxembourg First National Technology Foresight
Friday, May 20th, 2011In the context of the Lisbon strategy and the Barcelona targets, the Luxembourg government intends to increase the level of public spending n R&D from about 50M€ in 2005 to 220 M€ by 2009 and to concentrate the budget increase on a limited number of promising re-search areas on the basis of clearly stated strategic and operational objectives. The purpose of the first national foresight in Luxembourg, conducted in 2006-2007, was to inform policy-makers and provide direction for the definition of these national research priorities.
