Competition for Collaborative R&D Funding - Nanoscale technology enabled healthcare: building the supply chain

The Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have jointly allocated up to £9m to invest in highly innovative, business-led collaborative research projects in the field of nanoscale technology-enabled solutions in the healthcare sector, specifically in the areas of diagnostics and targeted therapeutics.

Up to £3m will be invested by the Technology Strategy Board for business and up to £6m by EPSRC for academia.

We are looking for projects where nanoscale technologies are at the heart of the innovation. They should address challenges in building the supply chain across enabling nanoscale technologies and the healthcare sector, and in taking ideas from basic proof-of-concept or process to pilot technology demonstration in a representative environment. Projects can range from industry-orientated basic research through to applied R&D.

This joint competition builds upon earlier investments by the Research Councils (RCUK) nanoscience programme (led by EPSRC) which funded £16.2m of early-stage research in this area.

All projects must be business-led and collaborative, with at least one partner drawn from large or small businesses, academia, research and technology organisations, or not-for-profit organisations. We will invest in projects requiring a public sector funding contribution of typically between £500,000 and £2m over the whole project. We intend to invest in projects that, in the main, will contain a mix of applied research (attracting up to 50% public funding), and industry-orientated basic research (attracting up to 75% public funding).

The competition opens on 1 November 2011 and the deadline for registration is noon on 6 December 2011. A briefing day will be held on 15 November 2011.

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 An independent extensive review of the REACH Regulation is taking place, looking at how the EU chemicals industry ability to innovate has been impacted by the changes in the regulatory framework introduced by REACH.

The study will; “evaluate the effectiveness, utility and impacts of the regulation and define existing barriers and obstacles to the optimal application of the REACH regulation”

The success of this study is largely dependent on feedback from Stakeholders, so we would encourage you to take part and have your say.

The Centre for Strategy and Evaluation Services LPP is the company commissioned by the European Commission Directorate General Enterprise and Industry to carry out this independent evaluation.

The project includes an online survey of businesses across the EU to receive feedback on key issues related to the implementation of the REACH Regulation. It looks at innovation from product conception through testing and piloting to production. Within the interpretation of the term “innovation” is included product, process, marketing and organisational innovation. The survey targets manufacturers and importers of chemical substances but also downstream users, distributors of chemicals and other firms involved in the different stages of the chemicals supply chain that may be affected by the REACH Regulation. It has been translated to all European languages.

This is an opportunity for companies: both in the chemical sector and downstream users, to provide important feedback on their experience and identify some lessons for the future implementation of the regulation.

The survey is expected to remain open until the 7th October 2011.

To access the survey (in many languages), click here...

International business plan competition on nanotechnology and polymer-based materials

Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge 2011 offers a total amount of 600.000 euro to start your business and join Veneto Nanotech or IMAST Italian high tech clusters!Do you have a business idea in nanotechnology or polymer-based materials? Then join the competition!

To visit their highly confusing website, click here...

Precise measurement of the molecular weight, size and density of a nanoparticle in a single procedure is now possible, thanks to an ultracentrifugation method, dusted off by scientists at EPFL.

Although nanoparticles are used in a variety of domains – such as medicine, solar energy and photonics – there is still much about them to be discovered. Establishing their full characterization, including mass, size and density, remains an extremely complex exercise, and this acts as a brake on research in the area. However, this knowledge gap will soon be filled, thanks to the work performed by Constellium Professor Francesco Stellacci and his doctoral-student assistant Randy Carney, from the Supramolecular Nanomaterials and Interfaces Laboratory (SUNMIL). In a recent article in Nature Communications (download it here), they demonstrate that it’s possible to obtain the complete characterization of a core-shell nanoparticle (the core and the external shell) by using a very simple method – analytical ultracentrifugation. This 100-year-old procedure has previously been used, in particular, to study the size and mass of proteins. It was in applying the method to their area of research that the EPFL scientists realized the benefits that could be obtained from its use.

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