The Advanced Materials Conference – To innovate in the future, the journey starts here – took place this Wednesday, June 16, in digital format, and aimed to mobilize the European community to the debate on advanced materials and their contribution as enablers of the technological and industrial revolutions to come. The event was attended by national and international speakers and focused on the importance of advanced materials to European prosperity.
The initiative was organized by the Cluster on Advanced Materials, of which Instituto Superior Técnico is a member, under the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The participants in the inaugural panel were the Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, professor Manuel Heitor, the Interim President of the European Research Council (ERC), Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, the Chair of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), Jan HRUŠÁK, and the President of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), professor Helena Pereira.
The conference addressed several topics, such as “Impact of Science in Education and Technology Transformations”, “Advanced Materials as Accelerators of the Digital Economy”, “Materials as Activators and Promoters of Prosperity and Welfare” and “Advanced Materials Towards a Sustainable Path”.
Professor Rogério Colaço: “Materials are the basis of everything we have”
Professor Rogério Colaço, president of Técnico and researcher in this field, moderated the panel titled “Materials as Activators and Promotors of Prosperity and Welfare”, composed of professor Joana Mendonça, president of Agência Nacional Inovação (ANI), Jurgen Tiedje, Head of Unit Industrial Transformation (DG RTD, European Commission), Heléne Chraye, Head of Unit Clean Energy Transition (DG RTD, European Commission), and Peter Wellmann, President of European Materials Research Society.
“Materials are the basis of everything we have, they are the basis of our way of life. We cannot imagine the future without addressing issues related to materials, such as the sustainable life cycle, the development of new materials to meet new needs”, stressed professor Rogério Colaço.
Professor Joana Mendonça talked about knowledge transfer and the importance of collaboration between companies and universities. “I’ve been working on this for many years, and I realize that in most cases, both companies and universities really want to collaborate with each other, the problem is that there are some difficult issues in this collaboration”. The president of ANI highlighted the relationship between Research and Development (R&D) investment and economic growth and reiterated “However, R&D and innovation are not the same thing”.
“The link between R&D and innovation is very important, because without it, there is no knowledge transfer. We have high levels of R&D, but low commercialization rates”, highlighted professor Joana Mendonça. “ANI aims to promote this collaboration, to develop innovation and bring it to market”.
Jurgen Tiedje and Heléne Chraye, highlighted the financial instruments and procedures of Horizon Europe, namely Clusters 4 and 5, and the opportunities and priorities of the Horizon Europe programme, in particular with respect to Advanced Materials.
Professor Renzo Tomellini, Head of the Technical Secretariat of the Italian Minister of Ecological Transition, summarised the topics covered on the roundtable discussion titled “Advanced Materials Towards a Sustainable Path”. “Materials are part of our past and present, and will be part of our future. Sustainability and space missions are really something new when it comes to materials, and will influence our way of thinking in the coming decades, as well as the ultimate goal of decarbonisation, and also the intermediate ones”.
The videos of each session and a summary report of the presentations will be available on FCT Nova Department of Materials Science website.
