We are happy to welcome to our team Panagiotis Chatzis who joined our team as a Project Manager in November 2023. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Greece where he also served military service at the Public Affairs Office at NATO HQ.  He pursued his passion for service by taking on various administrative roles in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education. As he developed a thorough understanding of government policies and structures, he also experienced the impact of the deep Greek government-debt crisis that turned him towards the European Union by joining the European Politics and Society Programme, an international joint master’s degree composed of 4 semesters in 3 different European cities: Prague, Kraków, and Leiden. Having nurtured avid support for European Integration, he engaged in three EU Framework Programmes: Horizon Europe, Erasmus+ and CERV.

Before joining us, he was a Trainee at the Office of the Director at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, where he acquired comprehensive knowledge about creating jobs and delivering sustainable and smart growth through research and innovation.

He does enjoy spending free time in various ways that enrich the body and mind. Swimming is one of his favorite sports, as it helps him relax and stay fit. Listening to podcasts is another hobby of Panagiotis, as in this way he learns new things and hear different perspectives on various topics.

In AMIRES, Panagiotis is involved in the Horizon Europe Projects ECOBALLIFE and NetZeroAICT.

We are glad to have Panagiotis in our team and we wish him best of luck!

Deal announced at EU-Canada summit opens door to wider transatlantic collaboration in research, energy, digital and other fields. Wanted now: ‘transformative discoveries’ by working together, EU president says.

After lengthy negotiations, the EU and Canada reached agreement for Canadian researchers to join Horizon Europe research programme from next year.

The deal was announced at an EU-Canada summit in St. John’s, Newfoundland 24 November as part of a package of expanded trade cooperation that includes research, energy, digital, aerospace and other fields.

Regarding research, the tone was almost triumphant.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “Canada’s joining Horizon Europe, which is the greatest research and innovation mechanism in the world right now.”  Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, was similarly ebullient at a press briefing, saying the deal will bring researchers from the two sides of the North Atlantic closer and she is already anticipating “the innovative breakthroughs and transformative discoveries that will emerge from our joint projects.”

Both leaders, however, were charry with details about the deal – apparently in part because administrative details have yet to be fully resolved.  Von der Leyen said, “we expect the agreement will be signed soon, before mid next year.  And once this is done, researchers in Canada will be able to receive funding from Horizon.” Later, however, EU officials told Science|Business they may put in place a “transitional arrangement” so the Canadian grant applications can start earlier in 2024 – though they still won’t have any money disbursed until the formal signing. 

More information here!

Latest updates regarding AMIRES on the news page!

The Commission announced that nearly €1 billion of investments in deep tech companies have been approved by the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund since the Fund started its operations in September 2022. The EIC Fund is the venture investment arm of the European Innovation Council, which was launched under Horizon Europe to support breakthrough technologies and innovations. In just over one year, 159 start-ups and SMEs, all selected under the EIC Accelerator programme, have had their investments approved. By reaching this €1 billion milestone, the EIC consolidates its position as the investor of choice for European deep tech companies.

Read the full press release!

To know more about AMIRES news, click here!

• 6 countries

• 8 Partners

• 42 months of intensive work

• 62 key deliverables

• 6720 working hours

This is ORGANTRANS: Controlled Organoids transplantation as enabler for regenerative medicine translation.

Within the realms of the EU-funded ORGANTRANS project, experts have developed an alternative that can change the landscape of organ transplantation as we know it. This pioneering method harnesses the power of bioengineering, 3D bioprinting and stem cells to craft new liver tissue within laboratory conditions.

It is known, that liver diseases account for 1 million deaths worldwide every year. While liver transplantation is the most effective way to restore normal functions for various diseases acute Liver failure, inherited metabolic disease and chronic liver failure, less than 30 % of global transplantation needs are currently met.

The ORGANTRANS project potentially offers a lifeline to those in dire need. It covered the entire development cycle from cell source to tissue engineering. This innovative process revolves around utilizing a patient’s own healthy cells to cultivate new liver tissue in controlled laboratory settings The building blocks such as the spheroid sorting platform, bioink, 3D bioprinting, and the maturation platform were meticulously synchronized and integrated into one 3D liver tissue bioprinting platform, paving the way for the development of a functional liver construct.

Moreover, the ORGANTRANS project’s impact is not confined to liver transplantation alone, it has opened the door to innovative technologies that have the potential to revolutionize other organ systems and tissues within the field of regenerative medicine.

Watch a short video about the ORGANTRANS project and the incredible innovations achieved within this groundbreaking initiative.

Follow the project on organtrans.eu

Know more about the latest updates regarding AMIRES projects here!

On 11-12 October, eCAP consortium partners were welcomed by ABIMI in Prague for a biannual project progress meeting. eCAP project is an Innovation Action from our health portfolio, developing a smart capsule with multiple sensors and integrated e-health platform for detecting biochemical and physiologic events associated with gastrointestinal disorders.

At month 18 of the 4-year project, a lot has been achieved since the consortium last met. To name a few:

• The battery prototype developed by Integer is ready for eCAP capsule.
• Tyndall National Institute and the Imagination Factory are finalising mechanical work in preparation of animal testing.
• First iterations of the e-health platform have been developed by RDS.
• Clinical study protocol has been drawn up by IHU.
• Thorough training on regulatory matters has been conducted by EnteraSense and Betthera to maximise patient safety and accelerate eventual marketing approval process for the novel medical device.

The meeting was dedicated to working out a detailed plan for the major milestones upcoming in the project: animal testing, manufacturing the first batch of eCAP1 capsule and launching the first-in-human clinical trials in France in 2024. In addition, eCAP will undergo its first project review in January 2024, a task which ABIMI is happy to support the consortium with.
While the agenda was packed with important discussions, the partners found some time to enjoy the beauty of Prague and catch up informally. Nothing beats meeting in person – we were glad to have you!

We are very pleased to introduce our Programme Manager Martina, Martina even though she was on the parental leave she was actively contributing to the projects and as well as to the proposal writing. From September Martina is back on full time and we are happy to welcome her back!

Martina leads the Health and Biotechnology programme, she studied the University of Economics in Prague, Faculty of International Relations, major: International Trade in 2009 and her master’s degree at Touro College in New York, Graduate School of Business, major: International Finance in 2011. Martina has been developing her expertise with grant preparation and management since 2010. In the capacity of the Executive Assistant to the Dean at Touro College’s Graduate School of Education she, among other responsibilities, participated in preparation and management of two grants funded by the US Department of Education. As the Manager of International Projects and, subsequently, Member of the Board of Directors at AGEL Research a.s. she coordinated involvement of the AGEL Healthcare Group entities in international research consortia projects submitted for funding into Horizon 2020 competition. Martina also served as Director of Program Management and Chief Liaison for EU at IMPACT Leadership 21, a New York based global platform providing leadership solutions that drive change toward inclusive and sustainable economies. She was a representative to the United Nations.

Martina spends her free time with her family (a husband, a daughter and two stepchildren), taking trips and visiting larger family members and friends who are spread across the Czech Republic. Being raised on a farm in a small village, Martina maintains a micro garden nearby her Prague apartment and enjoys spending as much time outside of civilization as possible.

About her work she says: “I am enthusiastic to support the master minds of European research in shaping their break-through ideas into projects and bringing impacts for European patients and health systems. I also very much appreciate the friendly and cheerful atmosphere at AMIRES, and the company unlimited support to one’s development.”

We are happy to welcome to our portfolio a new Horizon Europe project: Next-2Digits – The next generation of sensors and imagers enabled by 2D materials digital integration.

On 17^th October 2023, our colleagues Roman and Marco travelled to Athens, Greece, to kick off the Horizon Europe project Next-2Digits, coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens.

With a consortium of 11 partners from 8 different countries, Next-2Digits aims to tackle the challenges associated with Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits (OEICs) and 2D materials.

Next-2Digits benefits from the presence of well-reputed academic, research and industrial teams, whose areas of work span from photonics, material science, application-based integration technologies and validation.

The proposed technology to integrate graphene into PICs, being one-step and free of chemical processing, will have significant advantages in terms of cost, material and energy saving, and reduced resulting waste.

Next-2Digits envisions to develop the first hybrid Graphene-based photodetectors (PDs) and modulators (MDs) which will be integrated into three device demonstrators:

1) A miniaturized LiDAR; for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

2) PIC greenhouse gas sensor; which will be installed in the premises of a biogas production company 

3) An on-chip polarization diversity receiver (PDR); which will be used for biomedical optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging in a cardiovascular application

Want to know more about the project and its partners? Visit Next-2Digits website!

We are looking forward to this collaboration! Follow the project also on LinkedIn and Twitter to receive all the latest updates!

Visit AMIRES website if you are interested in more projects!

On the 13th of September, ECOBALLIFE kick-off meeting was celebrated in San Sebastian. The event was organized and hosted by Tecnalia.

It is a new adventure for AMIRES – our first ever participation in an European Defence Fund.

We are glad to welcome in our AMI portfolio the ECOBALLIFE project – Research in Eco-Designed Ballistic Systems for Durable Lightweight Protections Against Current and New Threats in Platform and Personal Applications – which will identify, create and improve knowledge, new materials and technologies to ensure a high level of protection against a wide range of threats, reducing the risk of injury to soldiers.

Project partners under the leadership of Tecnalia met in San Sebastian to discuss first steps on how to reach the project objectives of finding new material concepts and technologies to create proof-of concepts of new personal and military platform protection solutions that can protect against new threats. 

In the picture below you can see the participants who were present during the kick-off meeting in San Sebastian.

Latest updates regarding AMIRES projects here!

“Quantum Immortality…..The Joke That Never Dies”

Technologies that rely on quantum phenomena are all around us. If you would like to be a part of the Horizon Europe Quantum projects do not hesitate and BECOME ONE OF US!

We are friendly multicultural company with lovely offices (full of coffee and cookies) based in Prague 6. We cannot wait to welcome YOU on board, we can promise that you will meet new people, you will travel and you will be given space to learn and grown.

If you would like to know more about the position, read HERE.

From the 20th of September to the 21st of September, Switch2Save celebrated the workshop on Smart & Efficient Building Envelopes: Lessons Learned & Future Prospects and the final meeting at Impact Hub Athens.

Thanks to National Technical University of Athens that hosted and organized the event. It was an opportunity for partners to present, to learn, to visit the windows installation and to participate in an interesting discussion about the next steps of the project. Also, the attendees had the opportunity to meet the brilliant students behind the award-winning “Smart Stores” project.

Moreover, the line-up was amazing! We had a very exciting presentations in two different sessions –  for the Switch2Save project and for the end-user perspective – where the expert speakers illuminate the path forward.

Below, you can see a group photo that summarize the two-days event. Also, you can watch here a short video summarizing what the event was about!

More AMIRES projects here!

After multiple false dawns, London and Brussels have finally agreed a deal to allow the UK to rejoin. The UK will also join the Copernicus space programme, but is out of Euratom and the ITER fusion project.

The UK government and European Commission have have struck a deal to allow the country to associate to Horizon Europe after more than two and a half years of delay.

This morning they released a joint statement that will have UK and EU scientists breathing a sigh of relief after being stuck in limbo since 2021.

“The EU and UK are key strategic partners and allies, and today’s agreement proves that point,” said Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in a statement. “We will continue to be at the forefront of global science and research.”

The deal means that UK scientists will now be able to receive European Research Council grants and coordinate academic-industrial consortia in the Framework programme.

Up to now, they have been forced to rely on UK equivalent grants and funding instead of being seamlessly integrated into Horizon Europe.

While UK academics have still been able to join consortia under the industrially-focused Pillar 2 of the programme – the biggest part by value – uncertainty about the future meant that UK participation in the programme halved, raising fears that UK scientists were being forced out of European academic networks built up over decades.

UK-based ERC grant winners have faced an agonising choice over whether to move to the EU to keep their awards, or stay and settle for a UK equivalent scheme.

More information here!

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has selected the next set of proposals under the 2023 EIC Pathfinder Open call. 53 new projects will receive altogether up to €169.5 million and will develop cutting-edge technologies throughout a wide range of fields – health, artificial intelligence, computing, environment, and energy.

The successful applications were chosen among 783 evaluated submissions, with the highest number of selected applicants coming from France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Participants mostly come from higher education and research organisations, with SMEs accounting for around 18% of participants.

Selected proposals will receive not only grants, but will also have access to tailor-made coaching under the EIC Business Acceleration Services.

More information here!

Stay tuned for new updates regarding our projects!

Meet Mathias Leandro Fernandez, a 23-year-old visionary hailing from San Juan, Argentina. With a multilingual edge in Spanish, English, and Italian, Mathias embarked on a journey in Industrial Engineering at UNSJ, Argentina, before advancing to Industrial Organization Engineering at the University of Málaga, Spain.

Driven by a lifelong interest in emotional intelligence and self-growth, Mathias transformed into a Life Coach after training at the Leadership Training School, Buenos Aires, in 2022.

Mathias’s thirst for knowledge extends to project management, innovation, and entrepreneurship, culminating in his recognition during the Flash Session Hackathon 4 by UMA Link in May 2023. Awarded a scholarship, he excelled at the European Innovation Academy 2023 in Porto, Portugal, contributing as Chief Product Officer for HOTTBOXX. This startup optimizes delivery driver routes, elevating service quality.

Mathias Rodriguez embodies youthful vigor, innovation, and a commitment to personal and collective progress. His journey is an inspiring testament to continuous learning and making a positive impact.

Beyond his achievements, Mathias enjoys sports, travel, and channeling positivism towards animal welfare.

In AMIRES, Mathias will be working as an Intern involved in different tasks helping our team. Thanks to IAESTE Czech Republic every year we open a door to an intern who spends with us 2 months, this year we are pleased to welcome Mathias for our new internship.

New guidelines to help EU countries update their climate adaptation strategies.

The European Commission today adopted a new set of guidelines to assist Member States in updating and implementing comprehensive national adaptation strategies, plans and policies, in line with the European Climate Law and the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change.

From extreme heatwaves and devastating droughts, to deadly forest fires and rising sea levels eroding coastlines, the inevitable impacts of unchecked climate change are well known and starting to manifest themselves. The latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report underlined the urgency to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Today’s guidelines aim to help Member States upgrade their preparations for this emerging reality of rapidly intensifying impacts.

Read the original article here.

Read news related to AMIRES projects on our website!

Policymakers will have to decide whether to back partnerships in new sectors, including brain health, forestry, solar photovoltaics and raw materials.

The plan for the next Horizon Europe partnerships that are due to start from 2025 is finally on the table, with the European Commission proposing ten new programmes that will pool public and private funding.

These will cover topics including brain health, cultural heritage, solar power, and textiles, adding to the current portfolio of 49 joint research programmes.

If approved by policymakers, these partnerships will be part of the strategic plan for Horizon Europe from 2025-2027, the final three years of the current €95.5 billion research and innovation programme.

Research partnerships that combine private and public money have been part of the EU’s research frameworks for the last three decades. They are intended to boost industries that need a leg up to advance innovation. In more recent years, they have been looked to as a tool to advance EU policy and geopolitical goals in areas such as the green and digital transitions.

The entire article here

More information regarding to AMIRES projects in our website!

The fair trade featured a combination of research and technology trends that are shaping applications and end markets. We loved seeing the offering and impact of projects in which AMIRES partners, namely 3 pilot lines lowering access barrier for innovative European business in three domains:

JePPIX: Open access pilot line for manufacturing of InP-based photonic integrated circuits.

Phabulous: Highly advanced & robust manufacturing technology for optical free-form micro-structure.

MedPhab: Manufacturing of diagnostic devices and instruments for treatment based on photonics.

Part of the trade show was for the second time also event on quantum technology where Quantum Flagship presented a portfolio of projects, including QU-TEST & QU-PILOT, recently launched projects which will support open testing, experimentation and pilot production capabilities for quantum technologies.

Moreover, automatica event on smart automation and robotics took place in parallel with LASER World of PHOTONICS for the first time. In their start-up competition, we could spot Meep, who presented themselves with their doctor-at-home device based on silicon photonics chip technology. A great example of innovative solution supported by PhotonHub and MedPhab ecosystems!

Finally, this event also marked 20^th anniversary of EPIC – EUROPEAN PHOTONICS INDUSTRY CONSORTIUM and we wish them many more years of supporting partnerships in photonics industry!

Cork, Ireland was the location in where MedPhab partners gathered for their M42 meeting on June 14 and 15, 2023. The host Tyndall Institute made sure their guests were comfortable to discuss the progress of the pilot line in the last six months.

The Consortium, led by Prof. Jussi Hiltunen and supported by the management of ABIMI, is in a good position on the progress of the project’s objectives after successfully passing the review meeting with the European Commission and reviewers few months back. The use-cases, that validate technology maturity of MedPhab partners, are close to finish, however still challenges are ahead on the last steps of this process. The open call for the external demo cases finalized in April 2023, and 8 cases were selected in the last cut-off to start implementation in July 2023. For this reason, the Consortium will propose extending the project duration and formally requesting approval from the European Commission. Special attention was given in the discussions about the MedPhab non-profit association as the continuity and sustainable model for MedPhb project, led by Christina Liedert, the Executive Director. In addition, the efforts of the dissemination and marketing were acknowledged and encouraged to continue in the upcoming events, such as COMPAMED MEDICA in Düsseldorf in November this year.

Do not miss to follow this successful story on the medphab.eu and medphab.com websites and their social media channels!

Exciting Developments in EU-Funded ORGANTRANS project: M42 and review meetings in Prague!

We are thrilled to share the remarkable progress made during the final ORGANTRANS project M42 and review meetings that were hosted by AMIRES in Prague, Czech Republic on 30-31 May. The meeting aimed to present the consortium’s results and discussing plans for the exploitation and continuation of the groundbreaking technology developed under the project. The consortium members also addressed vital regulatory considerations that facilitates the swift integration of these advancements into clinical practice. Additionally, representatives of the European Commission were present to review the progress made by the project and provide valuable feedback.

The ORGANTRANS project aimed to revolutionize organ transplantation by leveraging the power of stem cells, bioengineering and 3D bioprinting. The platform developed within the project is a future alternative for organ transplantation medicine as it proposes a disruptive alternative to donor organs for patients with chronic end-stage liver diseases. The innovative approach involves utilizing a patient’s own healthy cells to generate new liver tissue in laboratory conditions using a cutting-edge liver tissue bioprinting platform. Additionally, this research created novel technologies that can be applied to other organ systems and tissues in the field of regenerative medicine.

Thus, the story goes on, see us soon!

Follow us on the project website!

More AMIRES news here!

Last week (14-16 June 2023) AMIRES was at Sustainable Places Conference 2023!

This year more than 250 people gathered in Madrid to present their Horizon projects, discuss their findings and network with each other.

AMIRES was there to represent our energy projects ComBioTES, Condor, FRIENDSHIP and Switch2Save.

ComBioTES joined the workshop: “Low-TRL Renewable Energy Technologies” for the second year in a row. Although the discussion was brief, ComBioTES got many hints for improvements and several points of reflection.

FRIENDSHIP took part in the workshop: “Renewable Heating and Cooling Solutions for Buildings and Industry: 4th Edition“, where H2020 EU-funded projects experts from the biomass, geothermal, solar thermal, waste heat recovery, and heat pump sectors discussed a common strategy and next steps forward.

Switch2Save was presented in the workshop: “50 Shades of Industrial Deep Energy Retrofit”, where the speakers shared their feedback and lessons learned to empower the next phase of housing retrofit policies.

Finally, FRIENDSHIP, in cooperation with ASTEP, organized and moderated a workshop dedicated to “Solar Energy in Industrial Processes: How to Meet the Expectations of the European Commission”. The presentation of the projects was followed by a panel discussion about the main challenges and solutions for the broad implementation of SHIP systems in Europe.

As always, Sustainable Places was a great way to enhance projects` visibility and to find new opportunities of networking and potential future collaborations.

On 1st June, 2023, in the frame of the OrganTrans EU-funded project, bringing together researchers, SMEs and clinicians in the field, who exchange their perspectives regarding the opportunities and challenges in Regenerative Medicine. The speakers had the opportunity to network a day before during the dinner and enjoy an excellent traditional venue at Café Imperial.  

Structured around a keynote lecture, and sessions focusing on clinical needs, and enabling technologies presentations, the workshop was the perfect opportunity to exchange on future technology solutions, network, and start new collaborations with information about enabling the funding of the research in this field. 

During the keynote speech, renowned clinician and researcher Prof. Jan Belohlavek from the General University Hospital in Prague, explained the current status in the clinics and research of refractory Cardiac Arrest, extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR), reperfusion (ECMO), microcirculation, and different ECMO settings. He enlightened the audience with a summary of the opportunities of new methods that may help patients to survive prolonged cardiac arrest and how more research is needed for the complete regeneration of essential organs, such as the heart. 

Four EU-funded projects (AMELIE, PREMSTEM, JOINTPromise and Organtrans) were represented at the event. All of them are funded by the European Union under the same Horizon2020 topic call titled SC1-BHC-07-2019 – Regenerative medicine: from new insights to new applications. The workshop provided an invaluable platform for representatives from these projects, to interact, network, and exchange their experiences and challenges faced in their respective fields of research. Representatives presented how the research and development process for complex solutions on RegMed which have potential to reach the clinics for diverse diseases and conditions, e.g. muscle, bone, liver, brain. All these solutions require work, time and funds to provide evidence of their effectiveness, from the proof of concept through preclinical studies and clinical trials. 

The next block of the event consisted of three presentations on different aspects of clinical needs in Regenerative Medicine, starting with the Czech company, BIOINOVA who is involved in clinical trials for the validation of their cell therapy products. Daniel Scherman, founder of the “Paris Centre of Pharmaceutical Research” at the Paris Pharmacy Faculty in France , presented the potentials of molecular methodologies for cell engineering and provide alternatives to cell therapies modifications using non-viral methods but plasmid-based modifications. SME Betthera presented how it is essential to consider health economics and regulatory aspects from the early stages of development of Regenerative Medicine solutions, and how they could help if they are medical devices, new therapies or ATMPs (Advanced therapy medicinal products). 

Lastly, three SMEs and one research centre, HEALIVA, PHOSPRINT, CELLAION and CSEM, presented us their groundbreaking work on the field as technology enablers. From cell therapies for wound healing, to laser bioprinting, liver therapy solutions, lab automation and AI, biomonitoring and technology transfer to industry. 

The Q&A session and the networking breaks allowed a fruitful exchange between the speakers and the audience, as a result of the diverse points of views of the participants, positioned in different places of the value chain. Thanks to our inspiring speakers for coming to Prague and sharing your thought-provoking presentations, which facilitated insightful discussions! We also thank our wonderful audience for your engagement with the speakers on this challenging field. 

We were glad to see so much interaction during the coffee breaks and hope that the event will inspire new collaborations and partnerships! 

Read the final report here. 

More information about AMIRES projects in our website!

EuroNanoForum 2023: transitions from academic research to industrial applications  

From 11 until 13 June, AMIRES team had the pleasure to attend EuroNanoForum 2023 and to become part of the major European conference on nanotechnologies and advanced materials. Following the tradition to be held every other year in the country currently holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the 2023 edition of EuroNanoForum took place in Lund, Sweden.

Organised in the premises of Lund University, one of Scandinavia’s oldest and largest institutions for education and research, the event provided an open forum for representatives from industry experts, academics, policymakers, and other stakeholders to discuss the latest developments in nanotechnology. The program boasted an exciting mix of sessions with insightful discussions on the materials for fossil-free energy production, energy storage and energy efficiency, novel applications for 2D materials, quantum technologies.

The event put a focus the ‘safe and sustainable by design’ concept, highlighting the need to take it into consideration from the very start and showed how it builds on experience acquired from work on nanomaterials. During the panel discussions on European Infrastructures, the participants presented their view on innovations and industrial applications by identifying the key aspects and collaborative models for reaching success.

Deep Tech & ENESUS teams were lucky to take part in the event and to contribute by sharing the impactful outcomes from their work. Several projects from our portfolio related to both nanotechnologies and advanced materials were presented on AMIRES booth in the exhibition area or showcased as good examples during various presenters’ talks. The projects  RoLA-FLEX, MatEl, Qu-Test and Qu-Pilot, FlexFunction2Sustain were presented by posters during a separate session when the visitors had the possibility to interact with the authors. As always, it was a great pleasure to meet partners from our projects and long-term clients as well as to pave the way to new collaborations.

In addition to that, our colleagues participated in a closed on-site Workshop on the Future of Open Innovation Test Beds, organized as a satellite event on 14 June in the framework of Convert2Green and FlexFunction2Sustain projects. Under the slogan “It all begins with a conversation”, the workshop got together representatives from various ecosystems in order to discuss crucial issues that are unfolding during the OITB projects’ implementation. Lots of positive examples from completed OITB projects and best practices in terms of the collaborations between the ecosystems were shared.

During the round table discussion, specific challenges related to the standardization activities and IP management in OITBs were addressed and all participants agreed on the importance of those activities. All OITBs brainstormed on the future actions that can strengthen the community and how to ensure the long-term viability of the OITB ecosystem. During the discussion, it was clear that system sustainability can only be ensured if OITBs cooperate in a regular way with the central aim of addressing industry needs by promoting a broad and consolidated access to physical facilities, capabilities and services across Europe.

More information about our participation in new events here!

Soon it will be 2 years since Martina joined AMIRES as Project Manager. She started in the Deep Tech team, however, her passion for the environment attracted her strongly enough that she moved this month to the Energy & Sustainability team where she will take care of project Convert2Green (Converting Facilities Network for accelerating uptake of climate-neutral materials in innovative products).

Martina graduated from the Bachelor’s program in Translation and Interpreting at the Charles University of Prague and she continued her studies at the University of Valencia, following the Master in European Studies program at the Faculty of Law. In 2019, she obtained a Master of Science degree in International Development from the University of Manchester, focusing her research on the impacts of fossil fuels extraction in South America.

She gained her first professional experience at Chameleon Events Ltd., where she organized international conferences in the Energy sector. After returning to Prague, she worked for the Investment and Business Development Agency under the Ministry of Trade, supporting strategic investment projects from the EcoTech and HealthTech sectors in establishing themselves in the Czech Republic.

About her job Martina says: It brings a lot of opportunities to learn, travel and meet interesting people, and of course, great colleagues are the best part.

In her free time she loves going to the gym, traveling, reading and petting animals

Moreover, In AMIRES, Martina is involved in H2020 projects NanoQI (Multimodal X-ray and Hyperspectral Thin-Film Nano-material Evaluation and Quality Imaging), and TINKER (Fabrication Of Sensor Packages Enabled by Additive Manufacturing).

During our Regenerative Medicine Workshop in Prague, Czech Republic, on June 1, 2023, we had the privilege of clustering four cutting-edge projects (ORGANTRANS, AMELIE, PREMSTEM, JOINT Promise).

All of them are funded by the European Union under the same Horizon2020 topic call titled SC1-BHC-07-2019 – Regenerative medicine: from new insights to new applications.

The workshop provided an invaluable platform for representatives from these projects, coming from four different countries (Switzerland, England, France, Belgium) to interact, network, and exchange their experiences and challenges faced in their respective fields of research. Through engaging discussions during the session and in the networking spaces, they explored innovative solutions and fostered collaborations to overcome obstacles and drive advancements in regenerative medicine.

• ORGANTRANS

Gilles Weder (CSEM, Switzerland) presented the groundbreaking #ORGANTRANS project that  addresses the growing need for liver transplants, which are the only effective treatment for various liver diseases, causing 2 million deaths annually worldwide. To date, only 10% of transplantation needs are  met. Targeting chronic end-stage liver diseases and residual healthy tissues, ORGANTRANS combines autonomous self-assembly with biomimicry. The project relies on organoid technologies as building blocks, complemented by bioprinting for the recreation of the architecture of the tissue for vascularisation. Additionally, this research created novel technologies that can be applied to other organ systems and tissues in the field of regenerative medicine.

• AMELIE

Chara Simitzi  (University College London, England) unveiled the remarkable AMELIE project, which targets obstetric sphincter injuries that occur in 5.5% of postpartum women, and the current surgical management is not appropriate for all patients. AMELIE is developing a novel tissue engineered product consisting of autologous skeletal muscle cells attached to microspheres for the treatment of obstetric trauma induced incontinence.

• PREMSTEM

Cindy Bokobza  (INSERM, France) shed light on the PREMSTEM project, which focuses on regenerative #stemcelltherapy for repairing  #braindamage caused by #prematurebirth, that might affect to the 15 million babies that are delivered prematurely every year. PREMSTEM project evaluates human mesenchymal stem cells to repair the preterm brain. In addition to migration capacity and regenerative properties, mesenchymal stem cells are immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatory and enable relatively simple and minimally invasive access via the umbilical cord.

• JOINT Promise

Isaak Decoene (KULeuven, Belgium) took the audience on a journey through the @JOINT Promise project, unveiling the fascinating world of complex #jointimplants that enables regeneration within the body and holds great promise for individuals seeking relief from #joint-related ailments. There is no joint defect treatment leading to permanent regeneration for the time being. The project is setting up an end-to-end automation platform for the manufacture of complex organoid-based implants.

Four perspectives, with four outstanding developments that try to solve four different clinical needs: chronic liver disease, sphincter muscle disfunction, brain damage in neonates and joint-related diseases. These solutions will benefit from newborns, postpartum women, to the people that suffer joint issues or liver disease. These projects are solutions for treating and managing disease and disability, improving the European Commission objective of the SOCIETAL CHALLENGES in Health, demographic change and well-being.

The European Commission wants the EU to spend a total €13.6 billion on research and innovation next year, with €12.8 billion going to Horizon Europe. That is €400M more for the research programme than 2023, but in the face of rampant inflation the European Parliament doesn’t see this as a major increase.

Under the Commission’s proposal for the 2024 EU budget, in addition to €12.8 billion for Horizon Europe, a further €800 million for research would come from other programmes, such as €281 million for the Euratom nuclear research programme.

The largest chunk of the Horizon Europe money, €6.4 billion, will go to collaborative projects under pillar II. Funding for fundamental research amounts to €3.4 billion, of which €2.1 billion is to be distributed through European Research Council grants. The innovation pillar gets €1.66 billion, including €1.1 billion for the European Innovation Council.

All parts of the EU’s research and innovation landscape would get more money – if not more spending power – apart from ITER, the magnetic fusion device under construction in France. The project will see a €250 million cut to €556 million, “due to a slowdown of the budget implementation.” Of this, €50 million will be transferred to energy initiatives in the EU infrastructure programme, the Connecting Europe Facility.

Inflation is combining with challenges ranging from ushering in a net-zero future, to cushioning the blows from Russia’s war in Ukraine, leaving MEPs with the sense that the €189.3 billion overall budget for 2024 put forward by budget commissioner Johannes Hahn, cannot sustain the union’s ambitions.

The budget has also been hit by an increase in interest rates, with Hahn telling MEPS the cost of borrowing “almost doubled from the amount initially forecast for 2024.” This is a new type of budgetary headache for the EU, which only began borrowing in its own right two years ago, before rising inflation led the European Central Bank to increase interest rates. Based on 2020 numbers financing costs for 2024 were expected to be €2.1 billion. The latest forecast is €4 billion.   

The European Parliament has been calling on the Commission to revamp the budget to ensure it is fit to deliver on policy promises. The Commission may deliver – a review of the long-term EU budget is scheduled for 20 June. While it’s unclear whether it could spell major changes, MEPs hope for the review to shake up what they see as an unsatisfactory proposal.

“For us, this is a decoy budget for next year, because the actual budget is going to come later on, in a couple of weeks,” said centre-left MEP Victor Negrescu in a discussion at the Parliament’s budget committee. “We want to see not only a review but an actual improvement that would allow us to meet people’s expectations.”

The Commission’s doesn’t see it this way. Hahn insisted the review and the 2024 proposal are separate matters. But Jan Olbrycht, chair of the budget committee, said the review and next year’s budget are “more or less two sides of the same coin.”

The member states and the Parliament will now start working on their respective positions on the budget before they convene to negotiate the final numbers in late October. But the Commission’s review of the long-term budget may shake up the budget talks and will be weighed in the negotiations.

To read the full article, take a look here!

For news related to AMIRES projects, click here!

Today, the European Union’s Modernisation Fund has disbursed €2.4 billion to 31 projects in seven beneficiary countries to help modernise their energy systems, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in energy, industry and transport, and improve energy efficiency. It is the joint largest disbursement to date and will provide a boost to Europe’s green transition. These investments help those Member States to reduce dependency on Russian fossil fuels, meet their 2030 climate and energy targets, and contribute to the EU’s long-term commitment to reaching climate neutrality by 2050.

Thanks to revenues from the European Emissions Trading System, additional investments were made in Romania (€1.1 billion), Czechia (€1 billion), Bulgaria (€197 million), Poland (€47 million), Croatia (€88 million), Latvia (€5 million) and Lithuania (€1 million). The amounts disbursed today bring total disbursements from the Modernisation Fund since January 2021 to around €7.5 billion, benefitting 10 eligible Member States. The projects supported today focus on renewable electricity generation, modernisation of energy networks and energy efficiency.

Examples of proposals that have received funding today include:

• modernisation of the electricity distribution grid in Bulgaria to accelerate the electrification of transport, storage deployment, and the decarbonisation and decentralisation of energy consumption and production;
• deploying photovoltaic and energy storage capacity for public water service providers in Croatia;
• improving energy efficiency and energy savings in new buildings for the public sector through the ENERGov Programme in Czechia; 
• introduction of electric vehicles and corresponding charging infrastructure in Latvia;
• renovation of multi-apartment buildings in Lithuania;
• supporting cogeneration for district heating in Poland;
• new renewable electricity production capacities,  district heating, and gas infrastructure to replace coal-powered energy in Romania.

The next deadline for beneficiary Member States to submit investment proposals for potential support by the Modernisation Fund is 15 August 2023 for non-priority proposals , and 12 September 2023  for priority proposals.

More information here!

For news related to AMIRES projects, click here!

On May 22-23, the CONDOR consortium met for a project meeting to share updates and align on next steps for building up a modular device for solar-driven production of energy. The all-round enjoyable visit was cordially hosted by ENGIE LAB CRIGEN at their premises in Stains, Paris. Those partners who could not make it in person were able to connect digitally so that discussions with the entire consortium could take place.

The two-days concise but vivid meeting gave the partners the possibility to get an overview of the current status of the development process of CONDOR technology. Being at Month 31, it was crucial at this point to review the specific research activities performed for both device compartments and to discuss how the outcomes can be integrated. In the coming 6 months, the partners will work on the design and assembly of CONDOR prototype. In this regard, a draft of the P&ID integrated system was presented together with an outlook for the planned activities. Moreover, the consortium discussed the device validation in the testing site, which will be on the rooftop terrace of CNR-ISOF in Bologna, Italy.

In line with the discussion hold, the partners visited the laboratory of ENGIE Lab CRIGEN. Being known for its experience in the energy transition, devoted to green gases (hydrogen, biogas and liquefied gases), new energy uses and emerging technologies, the host showed the outcomes of various collaborations. In addition to that, they presented their work for CONDOR project related the photoelectrochemical cell system for the production of syngas by co(photo)electrolysis of CO2 and H2O.

A big thank you to ENGIE Lab CRIGEN for hosting the meeting, and thanks to all our partners for joining  in Paris and online for many discussions and important decisions!

Find out more about CONDOR on project website https://condor-h2020.eu/ and follow their social media channels LinkedIn and Twitter to get the latest updates.   

On 18-19 April 2023, the first annual progress meeting for eCAP project took place in Strasbourg, France, hosted by the project coordinator – Institute of Image-Guided Surgery of Strasbourg. The consortium devoted the two days to taking stock of the progress made in the first year of the project and fleshing out the work plan going forward. eCAP ambition is to develop a novel medical device combining a smart capsule with an e-health platform to enable enhanced diagnostics and patient empowered disease management for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Therefore, leading to improved clinical outcomes for patients suffering from gastrointestinal disorders across the globe.

In the first year of the project, the consortium focused on the mechanical design of the device, steered by Tyndall National Institute. The collaborative efforts are yielding promising results: the Imagination Factory, Tyndall National Institute and EnteraSense have designed and fabricated the first iteration of the capsule and implantation device. Meanwhile, Sentron has developed a novel flow detection method for diagnosing GERD and Integer is working on maximising the battery life of the capsule to ensure longer and more accurate patient monitoring. Meanwhile, the e-health workstream of the consortium has been further strengthened by the addition of a new partner – RDS (Rhythm Diagnostic Systems).

In the coming 12 months, the partners aim to deliver the first fully functional version of the eCAP capsule and digital platform, ready for clinical validation in France. This testing will be followed by clinical trials in Ukraine and Kenya to test the universality of the approach.

AMIRES is humbled to contribute to the management and communication activities of such an international project and looks forward to hosting the consortium partners in Prague in October for the next project meeting.

Read more on project progress on eCAP website and stay tuned by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Last week, AMIRES travelled to Finland for the Tumor-LN-oC M24 project meeting, marking the halfway point of the 4-year project. The meeting took place in Turku and was hosted by Abo Akademi University, the only Swedish-speaking university in Finland.

The meeting was an opportunity for the consortium to share updates and find solutions to shared challenges in the development of the tumor-lymph node-on chip platform. A virtual meeting with the project officer confirmed that we are well on track to achieve the project objectives and adjustments to the workplan do not negatively impact the project as a whole.

Jointly with the coordinator Ioanna Zergioti from the National Technical University of Athens, AMIRES led the presentation on project management, administration and finances. This is especially of interest since Tumor-LN-oC is the first lump sum project which AMIRES manages, which requires some additional clarifications, but ultimately gives us valuable experience when it comes to growing number of lump sum projects in Horizon Europe.

AMIRES also presented on the activities we are leading on the dissemination, communication and exploitation work. Tasks in this work package also include the project IP strategy, as well as the commercialisation roadmap which was produced by AMIRES during the last months in a second, updated version in cooperation with all the partners. The prospects for commercial exploitation of this technology look very promising, though the path to the market will be long and accompanied by many regulatory processes, necessary approvals and certifications to ensure the reliability and  efficacy of the platform as a research tool and potentially, in the future, IVD device.
The formal discussions were complemented by a guided visit to the laboratories in the Turku Bioscience Centre in which local researchers presented their facilities and experimental setups, a common dinner and viewing party of the Eurovision semi-final.

Overall, we are happy to report that the Tumor-LN-oC project has made considerable progress in its 2 years of implementation: the different technological modules that are essential to the development of the platform, including microfluidics, spectroscopy, microoptics, automatic image analysis and bioprinting have been developed and  optimise independently.

The second half of the project will now focus on integration of all these modules into the Organ-on-Chip platform and its optimisation with the ambition to keep the platform as user-friendly and affordable as possible, despite its complexity. The consortium will also soon start planning the validation of the integrated organ on chip platform with real patient samples, which will be a critical step in demonstrating the efficacy of the technology and its potential for clinical use.

Thanks to the Tumor-LN-oC team for their excellent work and to the Abo Akademi University for hosting us in Turku, it was a pleasure!

As we move into the second half of the project and continue with the development of the Tumor-LN-oC platform, we are excited about the potential of this technology and the impact it could have on cancer research by providing unique new tools for metastasis diagnosis, drug development  and personalised medicine. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with our partners and exploring new ways to enhance this innovative technology!

Learn more about the project and our progress so far on the website!

Our colleagues, Lenka Bajarova and Vaclav Smitka, enjoyed the M42 meeting hosted by Fraunhofer_ISC in Würzburg, Germany!

It was an interesting journey, full of discussions, presentations, and feedback, between the partners.

With only few months to go, it was crucial at this point to review the technical facilities by checking the building installations and the pre- and post-installation assessment.

During the M42 meeting, the jury decided the winners of the Architectural Design Competition, and a brainstorming session took place for the final workshop. You can already save the date in your calendar for 20/9/2023!

More information about the final event coming soon. Keep up to date here!

Keep up to date following S2S social media:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Instagram

On 20^th April 2023, MARVEL project partners (SCITEC-CNR, ITM-CNR, Istituto Cardiocentro Ticino, UniSR Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, HansaBioMed Life Sciences, Paperdrop Diagnostics SL, Amires) met for the final MARVEL meeting in Milan, Italy, hosted by the project coordinator, SCITEC-CNR. This was a unique opportunity to meet in person again and share the vast amount of experimental results obtained by the MARVEL team over the past 30 months, as well as decide further strategy for the exploitation of the developed technology.

Preface
The idea of the use of extracellular vesicles (EVs), specifically exosomes, as biomarkers, carriers, and therapeutic agents has been well demonstrated in different researches, leading to the explosion of interest in EVs in the early 21st century. Nevertheless, to be able to use EVs for clinical research or therapeutical development the EVs must be separated from multiple contaminants, often of similar size and/or density. Apart from this, a particularly arduous task is to move the isolation of specific EVs subpopulations beyond the analytical scale and towards scalable processes.

MARVEL story
MARVEL was an ambitious, multi-actor project, gathering 6 European partners and funded by the EU’s research and innovation funding programme – Horizon 2020 for 30 months under the support of the European Innovation Council. The project started in November 2020 and finished in April 2023. For the 30 months of the project, MARVEL has implemented various approaches to overcome bottlenecks in extracellular vesicles isolation to scale up the process beyond the analytical. For this purpose, MARVEL’s team employed a new technology for reversible isolation implemented with membrane-sensing peptides. This represented a paradigm shift from antibodies to peptides as an alternative class of affinity ligands characterized by the high efficiency of extracellular vesicles capturing.

Summing up the 30 months of the project’s implementation, it is worth saying that the achieved results were perfectly aligned with the planned objectives. To achieve these objectives, the project was divided into several stages. The first stage was dedicated to the analysis of technical requirements and specifications as well as the selection of the criteria for the system demonstration. In addition to this, specific attention was given to the biological sample’s parameters, their selection, and processing.

During the second stage, a strong focus was given to the development of new affinity peptide ligands that outclass antibody-based isolation methods in terms of capturing efficiency, versatility, and cost-effectiveness. The third stage focused on the integration and optimization of the developed technology into several systems and clinical environment testing, leading to ground-breaking innovations for extracellular vesicles deployment in cardiac repair and the non-invasive diagnosis of bladder cancer. Moreover, our consortium agreed to perform additional research analysis on the characterization of the isolated extracellular vesicles. This step led to a more precise evaluation of the effectiveness of the MARVEL multifaced and versatile platform for scalable extracellular vesicles isolation.

Finally, since the MARVEL platform can be scaled to other systems, the fourth stage of the project was focused on further plans and actions for the commercial exploitation of knowledge and MARVEL technology after the project ends. Thus, the story goes on, see us soon!

We are sorry we have been out for three days, but we were in Šumava National Park enjoying nature, working and having fun! It was a great experience where we combined working sessions and hiking.

These working sessions were led by our CEO, Rudolf Fryček, and divided in teams. We had useful time for presentations and discussions. Also, we had enough time to play the guitar, bowling and card games.

We have recharged our batteries and we are ready for everything that lies ahead. We cannot wait for the upcoming projects, the next meetings and following events!

In the pictures below, you’ll find out some of our activities and why AMIRES is the smiling company.

We are glad to welcome in our AMI portfolio the Qu-Test & Qu-Pilot projects. These Quantum projects will support pilot production capabilities, open testing and experimentation for quantum technologies in Europe. 

From the 19^th -20^th of April, AMIRES hosted the kick-off meeting where more than 80 quantum key leaders met in Prague, including the European Commission Project Officer, Christian Trefzger, PhD, who has presented quantum projects contribution to EU quantum roadmap.

The setup of the Quantum Testbed and Pilot line were the key topics of this first meeting.

You can watch the highlights from the kick-off meetings in the video below!

Keep up to date on QU-TEST & QU-PILOT page to know more about our quantum projects that have just started! Discover more about our projects here!

AMIRES was invited to the HradecEconomicDays2023 on April 14, 2023 hosted by the University of Hradec Kralove in the Czech Republic. AMIRES Health & Biotech programme manager, Dr. Mariana Pacheco Blanco, participated as a panellist during the Technology transfer session, chaired by Prof. Ondrej Krejcar.

Mariana presented the opportunities from Horizon Europe (HE) for funding research and innovation projects in the Health/Biotechnology sector, as well as how AMIRES can support organisations in preparing competitive proposals.

Many upcoming calls from HE in the health cluster with a deadline in Fall 2023 are organised as two-stage evaluations and with a new type of grant: lump sum grants. There are some small but significant differences between a conventional grant type and the lump sum, and those also impact in the way the project has to be designed during proposal preparation. AMIRES has experience in the lump sum proposal preparation in HE for other clusters. In addition, AMIRES counts in its portfolio of a running project (TUMOR-LN-OC) which is part of the H2020 lump sum pilot programme.

From the other presenters, the attendees could learn about the programmes to support Czech companies for funding their R&D (Research and Development) activities, for example. through Czech invest and to researchers and other organisations through the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TACR) grant programmes. The second part of the session featured successful stories in the knowledge and technology transfer, and their funding search experience, with speakers from Prague Bio, an incubator and innovation centre, Spadia laboratory, one of the largest diagnostic providers in the Czech Republic, Malaysia University and the venture for skin care, She Empire company, as well as TRILAB Czech 3D printing company.

After the sessions, a networking lunch took place in which the speakers could interact between each other and with the other participants.

We are looking forward to next year’s conference to learn more about successful technology transfer!

Visit our website to know more about the upcoming events!

Lightweight, switchable and smart glass technologies can significantly improve the energy management of buildings with large-area windows and glass facades and contribute significantly to reducing energy consumption for heating or cooling. Improving the availability and cost efficiency of such smart glasses and the corresponding manufacturing processes is the declared goal of the EU-funded Switch2Save joint project. The project partners are now on the finish line and have installed the first electrochromic insulating glass units to demonstrate and test the potential energy savings in a Swedish office building as well as in the demonstration site in Athens.

The project led by Fraunhofer FEP was launched in 2019 and in the meantime, prototypes of novel switchable windows have been developed. These windows can be retrofitted in existing buildings to support the energy efficiency of heating and air conditioning systems. The new solution is characterized by its ability to integrate different types of optically variable smart coatings into a building envelope. The partners Chromogenics AB from Sweden and the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC have developed novel electrochromic coatings for this purpose. These enable a window to be switched between a dark and a clear state. Fraunhofer FEP and the University of West Bohemia Pilsen have realized a roll-to-roll deposition process for thermochromic vanadium oxide. This material leads to a self-sufficient regulation of the transmitted thermal radiation depending on the outside temperature. The use of roll-to-roll technology also supports the development of cost-efficient manufacturing. Both types of these smart coatings can be produced on lightweight, flexible substrates such as ultra-thin glass and PET films.

Two buildings with different climatic conditions in Greece and Sweden were selected for the project. In Sweden, in the Vasakronan owned Rental Office Building in Uppsala (VAS), the Switch2Save consortium have already replaced 50 windows and 200 m² glass façade area with the smartglass solution and is performing a full “before-after” comparison of the energy demand. In Greece, the installation is at this moment done at the test site at National Technical University of Athens. Later, it would be installed in late spring in the General State Hospital of Nikaia Agios Panteleimon (NHOSP). All the findings will accelerate the widespread implementation of energy smart glass and significantly contribute to the goal of a CO2-neutral building stock in the EU before 2050.

As the project will finish at the end of September 2023, its results and real time installations will be presented during a final workshop, that will take place on September 21^st in Athens, Greece.

Follow the LinkedIn project page !

Keep up top date to all AMIRES projects here!

On March 29, MedPhab completed the second EC review meeting since the start of the project in January 2020.

During this meeting, achievements and highlights of the pilot line during the last 18 months were presented to the EC Project Officer (PO) and three experts who evaluated the progress as external reviewers. The main topics included: a) the progress of the pilot line operational processes through the Front Office and the aligned way of working of the pilot line, b) the technology maturation through the use cases and the external demo cases, c) the progress on the engagement with external companies through the open calls, d) dissemination to stakeholder groups within the medical community, e) growth of the ecosystem through the community management platform (https://community.medphab.eu/ ) and interactions with other EU initiatives and pilot lines (e.g. PhotonHub) and f) the business planning, through a sustainability model of a non-profit association, which has launched the commercial website (https://medphab.com/ ). In addition, on the frame of the review, two of the external companies (Spectracure and Femtoarrays) that had participated as demo case,s were interviewed by the Project officer and reviewers. Overall, they have been fully satisfied with the services received from MedPhab pilotline.

The pilot line has encountered some challenges, including technical and changes on the consortium.   However, mitigation strategies have been implemented successfully. During an open discussion, the reviewers and PO have acknowledged and congratulated the consortium for the progress during this period. They appreciated the openness and transparency of the consortium and the dedication of partners and coordinator, Prof. Jussi Hiltunen. The positive evaluation of this panel from the European Commission, strengthen the motivation and efforts to continue the work  on the MedPhab photonics pilot line dedicated for medical diagnostics.

ABIMI is very happy in contributing to this successful story!

Know more about our projects in our website!

We are thrilled to introduce our new colleague Marco who joined AMIRES team as a Project Manager in April 2023. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in International and Diplomatic Affairs at University of Bologna, Italy, Marco obtained his Master’ degree in International Relations at University of Bologna.

Before joining AMIRES, Marco has worked in a Public Administration, in the South of Italy, as a support for the programming and planning of public projects, as well as their management, monitor and control.

Marco likes to spend his free time with friends and play different kinds of sports, mainly football and volleyball, which he has played since he was a child. Also, he likes watching movies and listening to music. Finally, when able to, he likes to travel and discover new places.

In AMIRES, Marco is supporting the Deep Tech team and will be involved in RoLA-FLEX, Next-2Digits and ECOBALLIFE projects.

Welcome on board Marco! 

Last chance for SMEs and companies to take part on the MedPhab demo cases programme.

AMIRES leads the application procedure and helpdesk of MedPhab open calls for the demo case programme. Do not miss the opportunity to receive high quality services in the development of medical devices using photonics technologies in the last cut off on April 30 2023.

This is the last chance you can receive up to 75% support of the funding of these services from the EU budget.

For more information please visit Open-Call Medphab post or contact our helpdesk here!

To know more about MedPhab project, click on the following link!

We will be presenting at Technology transfer workshop.

The session is held on 14 April 9:00 at the room J1. Participation in the session is free of charge and takes place in the building of the Faculty of Informatics and Management of the University of Hradec Králové.

Our colleague Mariana Pacheco Blanco will speak at the conference about the current Horizon Calls.  

You can check the agenda on the following link, so you don’t miss a thing 😊

Looking forward for it!

Know more about our upcoming events!

A new set of 32 companies have been selected to receive European Innovation Council (EIC) funding, combining grants and equity, following the first 2023 EIC Accelerator cut-off in January. They were selected out of applicants that applied for the Accelerator Open call. This first cut-off in 2023 did not include the EIC Accelerator Challenges calls. 40% percent (13 of the 32 companies) have a female CEO, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) or CSO (Chief Scientific Officer) which is the highest share to date.

The companies were selected in a highly competitive process, in which 159 companies were interviewed by juries of experienced investors and entrepreneurs, out of a total of 476 applications. The 32 selected companies will together receive close to €196 million of funding in a combination of grants and equity investments. The equity investments will be made through the EIC Fund. The selected companies have a geographical spread spanning 14 countries. 94% of recommended funding is for beneficiaries in EU Member States, of which 17% is for widening country applicants.

While the blended finance (grants combined with equity investments) recommendation remained broadly the same as in recent cut offs (53%), grant first recommendations rose again (38%) with grant only moving in the opposite direction (9%).

More information pin the EIC website!

Continue reading →

The prize will be awarded to organisations and companies that are developing technology to deliver better quality humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people affected by crises and natural hazards.

The Commission launched the first edition of the European Prize for Humanitarian Innovation (InnovAid) at the European Humanitarian Forum, on 21 March 2023.

The European Prize for Humanitarian Innovation (InnovAid), supported by the European Innovation Council (EIC) under Horizon Europe, recognises the European actors that have developed game-changing and lifesaving technological solutions which have enhanced the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of humanitarian response. The prize is aimed at incentivising change and inspiring other humanitarian actors to scale up actions and foster innovation.

Know more about it in the European Innovation Council website!

The Commission has approved a new round of 151 projects under the Technical Support Instrument (TSI), to support all Member States in preparing, designing and implementing up to 326 cutting-edge reforms in 2023.

The supported projects respond to a reform need expressed by Member States while being strongly aligned with the European Union’s priorities for modern and efficient public administrations, sustainable growth strategies and resilient economies.

Many reform projects are also linked to the challenges of the Recovery and Resilience Plans and the REPowerEU Plan.

Read the full article in the European Comission website!

One of ComBioTES` objectives is to develop a modular-based intelligent optimal energy management system (EMS) algorithm based on a data-driven approach, with each module carrying out certain functions, e.g., control, communication, data management, modelling, forecast and optimal decision-making.

The developed algorithm will optimally manage and control the energy flows of the compact thermal energy storage, to meet a number of operational objectives simultaneously, e.g. meeting end users‘ comfort requirement, operating the system at minimum cost and using its flexible storage capacity to provide various electricity grid operation needs, like peak load reduction, reducing renewable energy curtailment and grid balancing.

DTU wrote a public deliverable containing explanation and requirements of the EMS architecture, each module and specification of modular interfaces, in order to guide the EMS development and implementation. An MPC-based control architecture is also presented, as an illustration of the minimum requirement.

Download the deliverable here!

We find ourselves in an era when the demand for affordable green energy exceeds the alternative energy supply and thus, we have to look for new alternatives to the currently well-known sources of renewable energy.

EU leaders have allocated huge financial resources to help scientists and industries to put their hands and heads together to work on new technologies and manufacturing techniques to secure supply of green energy technology in Europe and increase implementation of green energy.
One of the successful examples of such collaboration between top European research capacities and industrial players is the SuPerTandem project financed with the sources from Horizon Europe research aid programme and SERI, the Swiss state secretariat for education, research, and innovation.

The SuPerTandem project team is working on a breakthrough perovskite photovoltaic tandem technology with the aim to offer to the solar energy market a perovskite solar panel which is affordable for only 20 EUR per square meter, made of low-cost, widely available raw materials and manufactured by low carbon footprint production process.

Project coordinator Sjoerd Veenstra, TNO, explains the potential of the technology: “The novel perovskite solar modules we jointly develop are flexible, ready for integrated solutions, highly efficient, thin, lightweight, and circular – a combination of qualities which cannot be found in nowadays Photovoltaic panels. “

The above listed attributes increase the attractivity of the new technology throughout the whole spectrum of end users such as electric car manufacturers, farmers, or simply everyone who enjoys spending some days off grid.

The professional team formed by top notch researchers and industrial players met at SAULE Technologies, in Wroclaw to share the latest results and best practise and to unite on further steps to work on efficiency, stability, circularity and scaling the technology to an industrial relevant level.
The project partners come from 15 Top European institutions active in the field of perovskite photovoltaics – namely represented by: TNO – Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, HZB Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, Fraunhofer ISE, SAULE Technologies and Saule Research Institute, TuE – Eindhoven University of Technology, CEA – Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, 3D Micromac, FOM Technologies, SALD – Spatial Ald Innovators, Tecnalia, AMIRES, EMPA, Flisom and Fluxim.

You can find us on our website or LinkedIn.

SuPerTandem Project Coordinator: Sjoerd Veenstra, TNO, sjoerd.veenstra(at)tno.nl
SuPerTandem Project Manager: Jaroslava Kašparová, AMIRES, kasparova(at)amires.eu

For some people with liver cancer, a liver transplant is the only hope for a cure. However, the availability of donated organs for transplant is severely limited and patients on transplant waiting lists are often dying.

Nowadays, many scientists are working on different alternatives to donor transplants for saving the lives of liver-cancer victims. One such alternative is developed within the EU-funded ORGANTRANS project. This technology proposes to take some of the patient’s healthy cells and print them with a 3D bioprinting liver tissue platform into a new organ in laboratory conditions.

Recently, the coordinator of the ORGANTRANS project, Gilles Weder from the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), gave an interview about this technology describing its readiness level, current challenges, and 10-year horizon. The interview was published in the Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine in the article entitled “A silent killer, liver cancer prompts race to improve organ replacements”.

Find more about the ORGANTRANS technology here.

Visited our website to know more about projects!

Today we would like to introduce you Václav, our Chief Technology Officer. Václav joined AMIRES in 2013 as one of the first employees of the company.

He graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering in 2009. At the same faculty he finished his Ph.D. in 2013 with the specialization on laser scanning and deformation measurements methods.

His first contact with the research and innovation project is dated back to the time of his studies and employment at the Department of Special Geodesy where he took part in many research and development programmes and projects as a coordinator as well as a member of a research team. At that time he had no idea that preparation and management of these projects would become one of the main part of his professional career.

In AMIRES, Václav started out as a Project Manager, but over time he became more and more involved in the preparation of new project proposals, which became his main job in the company. Currently, he oversees all the activities associated with the new projects preparation and is also involved in new customer acquisition. In addition, Václav is a leader of the Energy and Sustainability team.

About his work he says: “As a tech enthusiast, what I value about my work is that I can be in close contact with people who not only come up with brilliant innovative ideas, but can also transfer and implement them into concrete devices and technologies.

Václav divides his free time mainly between family and sport. He loves volleyball, which he has been playing for more than 25 years. He is also a big fan of ice hockey and American football. His favourite teams are HC VERVA Litvínov and Pittsburgh Steelers.

When it comes to growing tissue constructs in vitro, ensuring the cells’ supply with oxygen and nutrients by integrating functional vascular structures remains a major challenge. Within the ORGANTRANS project, DWI Leibniz-Institute for Interactive Materials is developing a synthetic bioink that supports the growth of microvascular structures from dispersed spheroids. At the same time, the bioink can be printed into 3D structures with open, interconnected networks to ensure the nourishment of growing functional liver tissue.

This element is an essential block of the ORGANTRANS technology which aims to create a liver tissue 3D printing platform and replace liver transplantation for end-stage liver failure patients. In the long run, this platform can be scaled to other organ systems, as organoid technology is one of the largest parts of regenerative medicine.

ComBioTES project is pleased to announce that our first scientific article, written by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), is now published online in the journal Energy Reports. 

The paper is related to the research work on the development of the control system to shift the electrical load of the system to low price periods, while satisfying the specified indoor comfort requirements. 

More specifically, a building heating system coupled with an active Phase Change Material (PCM) TES device and a Heat Pump is simulated to characterise its potential for Demand Response applications. A control-oriented numerical model for the PCM TES was developed to simulate the dynamics of the coupled building heating system. Indeed, simulation results indicate that utilising an active PCM TES over a sensible TES offers significant advantages for DR applications in building heating systems in terms of load shift flexibility, energy costs and consumption.

Congratulations to the authors!

Read the full article here: Demand response with active phase change material based thermal energy storage in buildings.

On the 30^th and 31^st of January, we travelled to Paderborn University to kick off the Horizon Europe Project MADE-3D.

The project has 13 partners, from 10 different countries around Europe. The objective is to optimize the printing process of multi-material components, providing solutions to the most often issues that happen, such as residual stress, cracks, or thermal expansion.

MADE-3D’s ambition is to provide design freedom for highly complex components by using concurrent engineering, besides, Additive Manufacturing process modifications, component design, and recyclability will be developed in parallel.

We are happy to welcome in our portfolio new Horizon Europe project Convert2Green – Converting Facilities Network for accelerating uptake of climate neutral materials in innovative products.

From the 18th -19th of January, Convert2Green team met in Athens to launch the works on specialised services and aid tools for innovative SMEs heading towards Greener Europe.

The OITB will provide services for SMEs and start-ups with innovative ideas and products to help them to move quickly and safely from lab to fab and to the market.

Clean Autonomous Vehicles, Smart health, Industrial Internet of Things, Low Carbon Industry and Clean energy – are the industrial domains to be focused on.

The innovators from the above mentioned fields can start looking forward to the top-notch services delivered by Convert2Green OITB representatives all over Europe: Business model creating, Value chains access, Novel financing strategies, Economic feasibility assessment, or Business case calculation.

Open calls for SMEs interested to try our services to be opened soon!

You can know more about our projects here!

The meeting was hosted by Utrecht University partner in the unusual and interesting place, the railway museum in Utrecht (Netherlands) with the participation of Amires and other partners of the EU-funded.

Since the project will be finishing in June, it was an important moment to discuss and make final decisions on the integration and synchronization of the key components (bioprinting, bioink, cells, maturation platform) as well as optimization of the workflow for the development of a functional liver construct. Key decisions on the functional analysis of the constructs were discussed. Additionally, during this meeting, OrganTrans Consortium received valuable recommendations from the experts of the External Advisory Board.

The platform developed within OrganTrans project, is a future alternative for organ transplantation medicine as it proposes a disruptive alternative to donor organs for patients with chronic end-stage liver diseases. Importantly, this research creates novel technologies that can be applied to other organ systems and tissues in the field of regenerative medicine.

Follow our progress on our posts and see you at 3rd Regenerative Medicine Workshop on June 1^st in Prague, Czech Republic.

AMO GmbH and RWTH Aachen University organized a workshop on November 21-22, 2022 in Aachen, brought together experts from academia and industry to discuss recent advances on the integration of novel materials into silicon photonic platforms and presented the recent advances of the field, and to discuss the possible advantages and challenges posed by different materials – from quantum dots, to perovskites, to 2D-materials, etc. – and by different integration strategies.

The workshop was organized by AMO GmbH and supported by H2020 projects – POSEIDON nanophotonics, INSPIRE platform, MOCCA, PlasmoniAC, Graphene Flagship and 2DEPL, and by the German BMBF via the project NeuroSys Cluster.

The European Cancer Imaging Initiative will unlock the power of imaging and Artificial Intelligence for the benefit of cancer patients, clinicians and researchers.

The European Cancer Imaging Initiative is one of the flagships of the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP). One of the objectives of the Plan is to make the most of the potential of data and digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) or High-Performance Computing (HPC) to combat cancer.  

The aim of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative is to foster innovation and deployment of digital technologies in cancer treatment and care, to achieve more precise and faster clinical decision-making, diagnostics, treatments and predictive medicine for cancer patients. 

The Initiative will showcase how medical images can be accessed, used and pooled, while ensuring a high level of ethics, trust, security and personal data protection in full compliance with EU values and rules. It will make large amounts of cancer images and linked clinical data easily accessible to European clinicians, researchers and innovators in line with the European data strategy and supporting the goals of the European Health Data Space. 

Red the full press release at the European Commission official website.

Following the adoption of the Horizon Europe 2023-2024 work programm, the European Commission has launched new calls for 2023 worth over €600 million to support research and innovation under the five EU Missions – Adaptation to Climate Change, Cancer, Restore our Ocean and Waters, Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities and A Soil Deal for Europe.

This investment is expected to result in, for example, better preparing local and regional authorities to face climate-related risks, optimizing minimally-invasive diagnostic cancer interventions, restoring at least 25 000 km of free-flowing rivers, providing Climate City Contracts with 100 cities, and rolling out of the Soil Mission living labs.

More information about this article here!

Know more about other European Commission news in our website.

MARVEL project partner, CNR-SCITEC, is currently working on the optimization and validation of membrane-binding peptide-modified beads for unbiased (universal) and scalable isolation of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from different kinds of biological fluids (plasma, urine, serum, etc.). 

Extracellular vesicles are secreted by cells into the extracellular space and they are implicated in a wide range of physiological processes and diseases. This has led to an explosion of interest in using EVs in a variety of tissue engineering applications. For example, EVs have great potential to be used as markers for disease initiation, progression, and response to treatment, as well as hold huge potential as mediators of tissue regeneration. Nowadays, the main drawback of antibody-based affinity isolation by beads is the low scalability and underrepresented isolation (only sub-populations are isolated).

In MARVEL, we are developing a bead-based affinity isolation system by using a universal, yet highly specific, interaction with membrane sensing peptides. This allows scalable capturing of all small EVs unbiased by the differential expression of surface markers. The MARVEL technology outperforms tetraspanin antibody capturing and ensures high recovery and exquisite specificity against common contaminants.

Currently, we are validating our technology in cell culture supernatants, serum/plasma, and urine.

More information about the MARVEL project here.

We would like to remind you that the MARVEL project consortium met for the M24 meeting hosted by AMIRES in Prague, Czech Republic. We are happy to be a part of this progress!

You can find out how it went in our article.

On 10th and 11th January, ComBioTES consortium met together in Brussels to discuss the project advancement in the first 36 months and to have the 1st Official Review Meeting.

On the first meeting day, the M36 meeting took place and the partners concentrated on the progress of the running Work Packages, their highlights, results, and challenges. In the end, the consortium members reached a clear vision of the directions to take and on the objectives to accomplish in the next 6 months.

During the second day, the Review meeting was held, and the discussion focused on past deviations, future risk assessment and mitigation plans. The Project Officer, Juan Ramon De la Cuevas, also joined the meeting and provided valuable feedback on the behalf of the The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).

ComBioTES M36 and Review meetings were characterized by a collaborative and proactive behaviour of all the participants.

Exciting six months are ahead of us. Do not miss our next publications!

We are excited to announce that its Gender Equality Plan has been just published. We always believe that, in order to make big changes in the world, one must start with small steps on the individual and organisational level. AMIRES has always believed that within those steps it is natural to support women in their professional and private lives.

Also, we believe that a successful team is based on diversity and a multidisciplinary approach. Apart from diversity in terms of gender, AMIRES is an example of cultural diversity, bringing together individuals from Brazil, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Serbia, Spain, and Ukraine.

In addition, the AMIRES female team is a perfect example of multidisciplinary expertise, bringing together a combination of skills and knowledge that encompasses different fields, such as business, political sciences, engineering, international affairs, languages and biomedicine. Therefore, in AMIRES we have learned that tackling situations from different angles provides more efficient and effective solutions thanks to a multidisciplinary and enriched vision.

Furthermore, AMIRES is committed to promoting gender equality even beyond its organisation. Namely, AMIRES will go a step further and take actions to promote gender equality among its partners and clients. These activities mainly relate to proposal preparation and project implementation phases where AMIRES is involved.

Although, AMIRES has encouraged the female representation in leading positions in consortia and has in place the revision of the Gender Dimension section in proposals by the Gender Equality Board, these actions have been not monitored through formal procedure.

The AMIRES management together with the Gender Equality Board will ensure that attention is paid to gender aspects and will suggest appropriate actions where necessary. AMIRES is proud creating a positive and favourable working environment for all its employees regardless of their nationality, gender, age, ethnicity, religious affiliation or disability. This action plan is a living document and will be updated if relevant.

Read the AMIRES Gender Equality Plan HERE.

Commission welcomes Energy Community’s agreement on 2030 energy and climate targets.

The 20^th Ministerial Council meeting of the Energy Community, held in Vienna on December 15th, has reached agreement on a number of important issues which will further enhance energy cooperation between the EU, the Western Balkans and the three Eastern Partners – Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Crucially, the Contracting Parties agreed on an ambitious renewable energy target of 31% for 2030, as well as energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions targets.

At the Ministerial meeting today, the Parties also agreed to implement the EU electricity market rules. Once this is achieved, they will be able to fully access the EU electricity markets, and therefore to freely trade electricity with the EU. Member countries also agreed on strengthened compliance and enforcement of agreed energy rules. The meeting was chaired by Yaroslav Demchenkov, Deputy Energy Minister of Ukraine, which currently holds the rotating Presidency of the Energy Community.

Read more about it here. 

2022 marked a new milestone on the health research landscape in the Czech Republic. For the first time, a Research and Innovation Action coordinated by an organisation in the Czech Republic has been funded in the field of health. As part of the European Commission’s flagship programme Horizon Europe, a grant of EUR 8 million was awarded to the project entitled “RES-Q+: Comprehensive solution for improving health care using a global register of stroke care quality”. The project is coordinated by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (IHIS) under the leadership of researcher and neurologist Robert Mikulik, supported by Co-Coordinator Hendrik Knoche, an Associate Professor in human-computer interaction at Aalborg University, Denmark. AMIRES is glad to have supported the proposal writing and project management of RES-Q+.

The goal of RES-Q+ is to improve the quality of care for stroke patients, save patients’ lives and reduce healthcare costs. The project will build on the Registry of Stroke Care Quality (RES-Q) – a global academic platform launched in 2017 and the largest stroke care quality registry in the world to date. To achieve its ambitious objectives, RES-Q+ will strive to automate data input and maximise the use and benefits of the platform by:

• creating a fully automated tool for obtaining & processing data on the health care services provided to the patient;
  
• evaluating data & providing feedback to care providers through AI-enabled virtual assistants, which precisely target problem areas;
  
• creating virtual assistants for stroke patients to monitor their condition.

RES-Q+ will be carried out by a consortium of 21 leading European institutions: hospitals from Eastern, Western and Southern Europe, universities, IT companies, law firms, as well as the World Stroke Organization, Stroke Alliance for Europe, and ANGELS Initiative, which supports providers in enhancing stroke care worldwide.

Find out more on the project in the press release here. See the news coverage of RES-Q+ in Czech Television here (CZ only). 

To reinforce our team, we are opening position for Project Manager of European R&D&I projects in Energy & Sustainability domain. The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of H2020 / HE projects and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals.

Is admin and analytical work something what is not boring you?

Do you want to learn more about projects which are good for our future?

Do you want to be a part of international dynamic team?

Let us know, we are already looking forward meeting you!

Read full info HERE.

It has been three years of advancing medical devices based on photonics technologies

Three years already finalized for MedPhab, pilot line for photonics-based medical devices, and EU-funded initiative. To discuss the progress and remaining challenges, the consortium met in Philips premises in Eindhoven December 13 and 14, 2022. Key highlights of the results of MedPhab include the successful participation of the pilotline in COMPAMED/MEDICA trade fair this year, the interest of almost 30 companies in MedPhab services, the implementation of six external demonstrator cases selected by an open call, the preparations for the sustainable plan and operations, as well as the building of the ecosystem through the community management platform. In addition, we received recommendations on the sustainable operations of our experts in the External Advisory Board: Furio Gramatica, Ulrich Stärker, and Robert Sanders, which will be taken in consideration for the last year of the project.

Next year brings high expectations in the completion of several activities, including the establishment of MedPhab sustainable operations and continuation of further demonstrator cases, as the open call remains open until April 2023. If you are an SME that would like to further develop a medical product utilizing photonics technologies, find more information HERE. Or if you belong to the ecosystem of the medical devices using photonics, you can be part of MedPhab community here.

On 30th November 2022, FlexFunction2Sustain organized a Webinar Feasibility meets economical interest. The event was specifically aimed at promoting the Open Call for proposals for innovative solutions for sustainable and smart products powered by nano-functionalized paper and plastic in order to support SMEs, start-ups and industries in the development and market launch of pioneering products. The webinar provided insights on the FlexFunction2Sustain Open Innovation Test Bed offering and details of the Open Call application and selection process.

The video recordings for each session can be found at the following links:

• Feasibility meets economical interest, Dirk Brückner (GEMIFO)
• Strategic protection of innovation, Dr. Robert Harrison (SHP)
• Introduction to FlexFunction2Sustain, Dr.-Ing. Christian May (Fraunhofer FEP)
• Open Call insights: application and selection process, Anastasia Grozdanova (AMIRES)

The overall budget for the Open Call programme is 2.25 M€. Up to 20 projects will receive a granted access to complete set of services integrating technical, business, ecosystem expertise which will enable them to build up sustainable business cases. The Open Call will remain open for applications until January 27^th, 2023.

Detailed information about the conditions of the Call can be found here. Further assistance is available through the Helpdesk by email to helpdesk@flexfunction2sustain.eu or by phone to +420 226 217 422 (Monday – Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM CET).

We are thrilled to introduce our new colleague Joan who joined AMIRES team as a Junior Marketing Specialist in December 2022. After graduating from a bachelor’s programme in Business and Management at Universitat de Barcelona, Joan obtained his master’s degree in Marketing and Commercial Management at ESIC Marketing & Business School in Barcelona. While doing his master’s degree, Joan worked in FMCG at Affinity Petcare as a Consumer Insights Assistant.

In his free time Joan enjoys running, reading, and is taking up yoga classes. Also, he is a FC Barcelona supporter and loves to travel and visit new places. Finally, he is currently studying an online degree in history, art and geography.   In AMIRES, Joan is supporting the marketing activities of the company.

Welcome on-board Joan.

One of the goals of ComBioTES is to select a Bio-based Phase Change Material (PCM) for heating and hot tap water, which is biodegradable, chemically stable and with as less safety issues as possible.

In the first place, Roquette and CEA has developed a grid of selection of the bio-based PCM, with relevant parameters on performance, safety, supply, cost etc. It led to a first screening PCM suitable for ComBioTES, with the selection of Octadecanol, RT70HC, Crodatherm 74 and Isosorbide (more specifically, POLYSORB® PA developed by ROQUETTE, which contains an additive to improve stability and reduce the risk of thermal degradation).

Octadecanol, RT70HC and Crodatherm 74 were already known and have already been characterized by partners from ComBioTES in previous projects. Since Isosorbide experiences supercooling, preliminary characterization and tests were performed to assess (or not) its use  as PCM.  

Thus, Roquette characterized the thermo-physical properties of the Isosorbide in lab conditions with measurements at small scale of the properties relevant for TES applications. Roquette supplied 150 Kgs of Isosorbide to CEA to test it in actual TES conditions.

Eventually CEA performed some melting/solidification tests with the 500 mL dedicated installation in photo. CEA also completed tests without and with systems to help the solidification. Those systems were “seeding” (i.e., addition of solid particles of Isosorbide to initiate the solidification) and “bubbling” (i.e., nitrogen bubbling inside the vessel). The test results show that Isosorbide is experiencing supercooling at small-scale reactor, with primary nucleation and that seeding, and bubbling are efficient to initiate the crystallization.

In the end, Isosorbide is kept as potential PCM in ComBioTES. Its performances and its supercooling behaviour will be evaluated at reactor-scale (prototype of PCM thermal storage) in task T2.1 to conclude on its suitability (or not) in the project.

 SusDAT develops smart systems for gathering data from various sources such as sensors, cameras or other systems providing data through API. Gathered data can be processed on-site using edge computing methods and/or sent to a cloud for deep analysis. Data from various sources are combined using data fusion methods. SusDAT creates algorithms for data processing, classification and decision making using machine learning methods. Performed analysis could include image analysis, anomaly detections or pattern recognition.

Visit the official website HERE.

For more information please contact : info@susdat.com or frycek@amires.eu

The Commission has adopted the main Horizon Europe work programme 2023-24, with around €13.5 billion to support researchers and innovators in Europe to pursue breakthrough solutions for environmental, energy, digital and geopolitical challenges.

As part of the broader EU €95.5 billion research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, this funding will contribute to the EU reaching its climate goals (€5.67 billion), increasing energy resilience (€970 million), and developing core digital technologies (€4.5 billion). It will also address targeted actions to support Ukraine (€70 million), boost economic resilience and contribute to a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic (€1 billion).

More than €600 million will be invested in the five EU Missions in 2023. This will support research and innovation, which is expected to result in, for example, better prepared local and regional authorities to face climate-related risks, the restoration of at least 25 000 km of free-flowing rivers, Climate City Contracts with 100 cities, the roll-out of soil monitoring programmes or optimise minimally-invasive diagnostic cancer interventions.

Read the full Press release HERE.

On the 7^th December 2022 the Commission announced new calls to support researchers’ training, skills and career development under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), the EU’s flagship funding programme under Horizon Europe for doctoral education and postdoctoral training. With a total budget of €6.6 billion over 2021-27, the MSCA support researchers from all over the world, at all stages of their careers and in all disciplines. They also benefit institutions by supporting excellent doctoral, postdoctoral programmes and collaborative research and innovation projects, boosting their global attractiveness and visibility and fostering cooperation beyond academia, including with big companies and SMEs.

The MSCA will provide over €856 million in 2023 and €902 million in 2024 covering the five main actions of the work programme:

• MSCA Doctoral
• MSCA Postdoctoral
• MSCA Staff Exchanges
• MSCA COFUND.
• MSCA and Citizens

Under the new work programme, the MSCA will also fund a Feedback to Policy initiative to make stronger thematic links between MSCA projects, raise visibility of their contribution to key EU policy priorities and gather stakeholder feedback on ways to maximise the programme’s impact.

The calls follow the adoption of the Horizon Europe 2023-24 work programme.

Red the full press release at the European Commission Press corner.

AMIRES Investments s.r.o. is a newly created legal entity with the aim to support young entrepreneurs and companies. It provides a broad range of support, from the advice and guidance during the incorporation and in early stages of the company, through interim management up to a membership in governing bodies (e.g. Board of Directors) to help companies achieve their business aspirations. The broad range of contacts collected by experts during many years will be mobilized for significant advancement of technology readiness and customer feedback collection. AMIRES Investments will also advise on and facilitate private and public fundraising via multiple national or international opportunities. This equity-based support is focused on DeepTech companies, active in Medical, Energy, Environment, Industrial and Agrotech domains.

AMIRES Investments activity:

• Pre-seed, Seed and Angel Equity investments
• Advisor and/or Board member
• Interim management (incl. general management, marketing and sales)
• Strong support for public (Horizon Europe) funding
• Early-stage financing (e.g. before incorporation or TRL 3-6)

Advantage of AMIRES Investment support:

• Acceleration of company business planning
• Strengthened partnership with suppliers and/or pilot or early-stage customers
• Balanced team expertise needed for further fundraising
• Significant growth and validation / demonstration enabled by various funding instruments
• Increased overall company performance

For more information, contact Rudolf Fryček – frycek(at)amires.eu

The European Commission adopted a proposal for a first EU-wide voluntary framework to reliably certify high-quality carbon removals. The proposal will boost innovative carbon removal technologies and sustainable carbon farming solutions, and contribute to the EU’s climate, environmental and zero-pollution goals. The proposed regulation will significantly improve the EU’s capacity to quantify, monitor and verify carbon removals. Higher transparency will ensure trust from stakeholders and industry and prevent greenwashing. Carbon removals can and must bring clear benefits for the climate, and the Commission will prioritise those carbon removal activities which will provide significant benefits for biodiversity. Moving forward, the Commission, supported by experts, will develop tailored certification methods for carbon removal activities delivering on climate and other environmental objectives.

This proposal is essential to the EU’s goal of becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To achieve this goal, the EU needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum. At the same time, the EU will have to scale up the removal of carbon from the atmosphere to balance out emissions which cannot be eliminated.

Read more about the proposal HERE.

On 24^th and 25^th of November, FRIENDSHIP team got together for the M30 progress meeting. Six months after the first in-person meeting in Sweden, the consortium met again in Munich (Germany), hosted by Clariant, one of the project’s industrial partners.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Project Coordinator, Valéry Vuillerme (CEA), presented the project’s progress and took the opportunity to thank everyone for their hard work.

On the agenda over the two days, the consortium summarized the progress achieved so far and gave an overview of the work performed in the running Work Packages. In the end, partners also set the course for the future activities.

Whereas, on the second day discussions took place in specific workshops dedicated to the pre-design and decision-making tools, which will be implemented in the FRIENDSHIP website, and to the first training video that will be released soon.

In a separate workshop, the partners had a brainstorming session on the exploitation strategy of each Key Exploitable Results (KER). Thus, for each KER, result general description, IPR and TRL level were checked, discussed, and updated.

In addition, at the end of the meeting the consortium had the opportunity to visit Clariant industrial site in Moosburg and to see first-hand the structure of the plant and the challenges related to the implementation of the FRIENDSHIP solution there.

Exciting six months are ahead of us. Stay tuned for details!

Marina de Souza Faria joined AMIRES team as a Project Manager in November 2022. She has a bachelor’s and a teaching degree in Geography from the University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. During her studies, she got a merit scholarship to study for one semester at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. For her master’s degree, she joined the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, the Faculty of Environmental Science for the program landscape planning/landscape engineering which she graduated with honours presenting her master’s thesis “Spatiotemporal Changes at Krkonose Mountains Alpine Tundra”. The thesis was a part of her internship at the Botanic Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Due to her research background in environmental science and technology (spatial science) she kept improving her experience at INRAE in Grenoble, France working on a biodiversity project concerning the spatial analyses of invasive species.

In her free time Marina likes to be in the nature, hiking and travelling to meeting different cultures and landscapes. Besides that, she like to enjoy the time talking with her family and friends.

In AMIRES Marina is supporting the Deep Tech team and will be involved in MADE-3D project.

Welcome on-board Marina!

For four days, from 14^th to 17^th November, 5000 exhibitors from 70 countries and more than 81 000 visitors from various sectors of the global healthcare industry travelled to Düsseldorf, Germany, to attend MEDICA 2022 and COMPAMED 2022 (the biggest fair in the field). Among them, was MedPhab pilot line, which was one of the exhibitors of the IVAM Product Market (The International Microtechnology Business Network) at COMPAMED. In addition, several partners of MedPhab – VTT, Screentec, CSEM, Philips, Jabil – gave individual presentations at the High-Tech Forum IVAM.

Every year, COMPAMED/MEDICA dual event brings together stakeholders from medical technology and service providers, suppliers, integrators, and policy makers. The interactions ignite the new networks, projects, ideas, and business partnerships benefiting the healthcare industry.  The COVID pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of healthcare, through acquisition and deployment of technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, electronic medical records, sensors, high-performance components, biocompatible materials, and others. The deployment of these innovative technologies is dependent on product approval, regulatory affairs, certification as well as market peculiarities. 

AMIRES is at the heart of these topics. On the one hand, AMIRES has a relevant network with research organisations, universities, and companies as technology and knowledge providers. On the other hand, it is in close contact with health economics, regulatory experts, and clinicians. This position allows to leverage the company’s extensive knowledge and expertise in European framework projects that impact healthcare.

With this vision, combined with the need to connect numerous stakeholders of the medical supply chain, specifically in photonics technologies, AMIRES and its sister organisation ABIMI (AMIRES, The Business Innovation Management Institute, z.ú.) have created the community platform for medical photonics through the MedPhab pilot line (EU-H2020 funded project No. 871345). MedPhab community management platform, presented at COMPAMED-MEDICA is a digital platform that showcases a comprehensive catalogue of prototypes, technologies, products, and services in medical photonics and enables sharing information, announcements, and news to the benefit of the ecosystem. The community management platform is available HERE.

Organizations that belong to the value/supply chain of photonics-based medical devices and actively contribute to the ecosystem as key opinion leaders or stakeholders, can become part of the platform. Building bridges and connecting organisations through the ecosystem will contribute to accelerating the introduction of innovative products to the market and revolutionizing healthcare through photonic technologies.

All organs depend on blood vessels for nutrient and oxygen supply. The growth of functional blood vessels in 3D bioprinted tissue constructs for regenerative medicine applications currently remains a challenge. VIB, in collaboration with DWI Leibniz-Institute for Interactive Materials, assesses vascularization approaches of 3D hydrogels in vitro, by incorporating vascular endothelial and mural cells into the hydrogel bio-ink.

For liver tissue engineering, these approaches will be applied in the ORGANTRANS project to generate bioprinted, hydrogel-based liver organoid structures with preformed microvessel networks to facilitate connection with the host vasculature.

Find out more about the ORGANTRANS technology HERE.

In the last months, SINTEF developed a lubrication free turbo-compressor for the steam heat pump of the FRIENDSHIP system.

The designed compressor prototype allows temperature lifts of up to 30 Kelvin in a single stage compression and was dimensioned to a capacity range of around one ton per hour of compressed steam, based on a heat source temperature of 100°C (atmospheric pressure).

The prototype was designed for a multistage compression approach and the last stage has the ambition to achieve a pressure of 15 bar, which will give a condensation temperature of approximately 200 °C.

In October the turbo compressor rig was finally installed in Norway, with a two-stage setup using turbo compressors from Rotrex. The impellers are made from titanium, rotate up to 90.000 rpm and operate oil free. Also, they are equipped with a purge chamber, where pressurized air is used to drain out steam condensate, for improving sealing between the impeller and the oil filled gearbox.

Moreover, after each compression stage de-superheating stage through water injection is employed to reduce the inlet temperature into the next compression stage.

In the end the steam is extended in an expansion valve and regenerated in a condenser, i.e., steam supply tank.

Now it is time to begin the testing phase, which will include the testing of the new compressor flange seals, of the new thermos-seals between compressor section and steam regenerator tank, the testing of water supply and purge air system.

Photonic integration is essential in realizing our digital future: light-speed, super-efficient, precise and compact. The JePPIX Pilot Line enables fabless businesses to bring their Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC)-based product to market fast and cost effective. We bridge the gap from prototype to PIC production by facilitating an open-access foundry model.

The possibilities of PICs are many. PhotonFirst, the global innovation leader in integrated photonics sensing, collaborated with partners of the JePPIX Pilot Line to design and fabricate indium phosphide optical chips for their Modular Photonics Platform. With standardized building blocks, this platform allows PhotonFirst to configure a dedicated sensing solution for each customer without developing the system completely from scratch. With a wide range of combinations, this covers the vast majority of customer requirements and lowers the threshold of using integrated photonics for measurement and data generation substantially. PhotonFirst’s customers are active in various fields of applications, including aerospace, mobility, and medical.

The next steps of the Modular Photonics Platform are miniaturization and greater manufacturability. Nick Singh, CTO of PhotonFirst, says: “Our ongoing cooperation with the partners in the JePPIX Pilot Line and our customers will enable us to make high-quality chip-based sensing more accessible in the next few years. Together, we are committed to driving the industrialization and use of high-performance indium phosphide Photonic Integrated Circuits.”

The JePPIX Pilot Line brings together Europe’s key players in the fields of PIC manufacturing, design, software, equipment development and technology R&D. Amires is part of InPulse project which has been enabling JePPIX Pilot Line since January 2019. JePPIX is now open to provide extra support to innovative businesses through co-financing their development projects aimed at transitioning from the first proof-of-concept circuit to production.

Find out more about JePPIX services at www.jeppix.eu/jeppix-pilot-line/services/ and about financial support to EU-based business at https://www.jeppix.eu/jeppix-pilot-line/request-financial-support/

November marks the end of the first six months of eCAP – a collaborative research and innovation project determined to tackle the worldwide gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) epidemic by developing a diagnostic smart capsule connected to an e-health platform. On the occasion of this milestone, the consortium partners met over a day-long teleconference to discuss project progress and plan next steps. ABIMI is supporting the dissemination and management activities within eCAP.

Over the course of the last half a year, the consortium has successfully completed the activities laying the groundwork for eCAP specifications and user design. Moreover, partners have undertaken the initial mapping of the regulatory landscape and established the methodology for the health technology assessment and cost-benefit analysis of eCAP. This scoping work is aimed at ensuring the project results in meaningful innovation catering to the needs of a growing patient population on the one hand, and health care systems stretched for resources on the other.

The stakeholder interviews conducted by Imagination Factory – work package leader for User Specifications – indicate eCAP consortium is on the right track. Both, patients and clinicians look forward to innovative technologies to increase the accuracy and ease of use of tests utilized for diagnosing gastroesophageal reflux. While patients would appreciate improved comfort, clinicians and nurses stress the need to cut the inefficiencies and costs related to the devices currently on the market. The stakeholder input gathered will feed into the mechanical design of the smart capsule, the work for which has been kicked off under the leadership of Tyndall National Institute.

At the M6 Progress Meeting, the consortium was also happy to welcome the contributions from its freshly formed External Advisory Board and Ethics Advisory Board. The Boards are composed of renowned experts from fields ranging from gastroenterology and medical devices to regulatory and ethics.

Read more about the meeting and project progress on eCAP website here.

On the 18th of October, the NanoQI project partners had a chance to meet after over a year to discuss their progress on the M30 meeting. All partners were glad to discover in person one of the application sites – the thermal curing oven of perovskite solar cells at the TNO, in Eindhoven and to receive feedback from our external advisors.

On the second day, 19th of October, the meeting continued with an external event, showcasing the project results to almost 60 external participants during the Quality Control in Thin-Film Applications workshop.

TNO & Solliance welcomed us at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven where the project partners presented their impressive results and explored the potential pathways to industrial applications of the NanoQI methodology. Perovskite and tandem solar cells were the overarching theme in the talks, as well as the exhibition.

To close the day, the workshop participants could experience the project first-hand in a live demo of the hyperspectral imaging cameras, which were on display as well during a tour of the TNO pilot line, where the integrated x-ray diffractometer was also introduced.

We are looking forward to successfully finishing the NanoQI project!

ComBioTES system is composed of two storages, one PCM-TES (Phase Change Material-Thermal Energy Storage) and one Versatile TES. Therefore, one of the most crucial tasks of the project is to design and manufacture them.

In the first place, CEA performed four batteries of tests in their equipped laboratory, to determine the behaviour of the PCM and the latent TES. The first batteries of tests were done to compare the real performances of the HMH’s latent heat storage with the Sodium Acetate Tri-hydrate (SAT) as PCM and with the first bio-based PCM supplied by Roquette. Whereas, the following batteries of tests were performed on CEA’s highly instrumented experimental TES, to learn more about the PCM behaviour, in perfectly known and controlled heat exchange conditions.

Afterwards, CEA finalized the design of the PCM-TES and Versatile TES, according to the requirements established in the first phase of the project. The PCM-TES has an optimal design and 3 backup designs, while, for the Versatile TES the design is complete, and the engineering phase has just started.

The plan for the next months is to manufacture both TES and start the testing phase in Spring 2023. There is more to come!

In Prague, we were glad to kick off the collaboration between AMIRES, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Measurement of the Technical University of Košice (TUKE), Slovakia.

AMIRES acknowledges Marek Schnitzer, and part of his team Dr. Miroslav Kohan, Tomáš Bálint, Nikola Lisá in joining the Second Regenerative Medicine workshop on October 12 at the Technology Centre CAS, as well as in the RegMed workshop dinner a day before, on October 11.

Marek Schnitzer presented during the workshop the capabilities, results and use cases on bio-additive and additive manufacturing in personalized 3Dprinted implants of the TUKE Department of Biomedical Engineering and Measurement. All presented implants were designed in cooperation with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Measurement (KBIaM, SjF, TUKE) with the spin-off company CEIT Biomedical Engineering, s.r.o., later Biomedical Engineering, s.r.o.(ISO13485 certified) and produced by the additive technology with porous structure from titanium alloys Ti-6Al-4V, composites and other materials.

The main interests of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Measurement at TUKE are development of biodegradable materials such as polymers, composites, and others, development of instrumentation for additive manufacturing (production /printers) in clinical settings, bioreactors and quality measurement of filaments, composite structure, and ceramics. The members of the department have experience in collaborating in National projects, however they search to increase their collaboration with European organisations in the Horizon Europe framework.

The Department of Biomedical Engineering and Measurement at TUKE welcome organisations to partner in new endeavours to reach wider impacts on tissue engineering, implantology and regenerative medicine.

On 12^th and 13^th of October, AMIRES participated in the 31-month consortium meeting of the FlexFunction2Sustain project in Athens, Greece.

On the agenda over the two days, the consortium has recapped on the progress achieved forwards the objective to create an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) for sustainable nanofunctionalised flexible plastic and paper products. An overview of the work performed in the running Work Packages was presented and the partners set the course for the future activities. On the second day, discussions in specific workshops dedicated to the establishment of the OITB Association took place. As a symbolic act which expresses the intent of joining the Association, the partners signed the “Athens Declaration”. Equally important was the progress with the FlexFunction2Sustain Use Cases as well as the Pilot Cases included in the project via the Open Call which aims at validating the future OITB services. In a separate brainstorming session, the partners discussed how to increase the dissemination and promotional activities further to attract more proposals for the next and last cut-off date (27^th January 2023).

We are looking forward to continuing working towards the launch of the OITB.

The Commission has published the 2022 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard, which reveals that the EU’s innovation performance has grown by about 10% since 2015. Compared to 2021, innovation performance in 2022 has improved for 19 Member States, and declined for eight. Compared to the EU average, global competitors such as Australia, Canada, Republic of Korea, and the United States continue having a performance advantage over the EU. Nevertheless, the EU has closed its performance gap with these nations and has surpassed Japan since 2021.

Members States fall into four performance groups: Innovation leaders (performance is above 125% of the EU average), Strong innovators (between 100% and 125% of the EU average), Moderate innovators (between 70% and 100% of the EU average) and Emerging innovators (below 70% of the EU average). Sweden continues to be the best performer in the EU. Other Innovation Leaders are Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland.

In comparison to last year’s edition, three countries have changed performance groups. The Netherlands has become an Innovation Leader, Cyprus a Strong Innovator and Estonia a Moderate Innovator.

The Czech Republic is Moderate innovators.

The report covers the EU Member States and several other countries in Europe and around the world. Compared to the previous years, this year’s edition included three additional countries, namely Albania, Chile and Mexico.

The full report is available HERE.

Amires was presented at the 12^th International Conference & Exhibition on Green Flexible Printed Electronics Industry (ICEFPE22) and AGRIVOLTAICS 2022, which took place from 10^th to 12^th October 2022 in Athens, Greece.  The event got together various stakeholders by providing them opportunity to discuss, network, make business and establish the strategy and policy for boosting the rapidly evolving Green FPEs Industry contributing to a Green, Digital, Decarbonized Industry and Circular Economy, Society and Planet.

During the event, Dr. Vaclav Smitka, Chief Process Officer at AMIRES, presented the company. His talk on R&I tools, services and opportunities: from research to impact provided a practical overview of the possibilities in the R&I ecosystem by justifying the tools, which could be utilised to further steer innovations. Moreover, successful examples from AMIRES portfolio of industry driven projects which will provide high-impact future innovative solutions in the Flexible Organic & Printed Electronics field were showcased. Financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programmes, the examples demonstrate how research and innovation efforts can be aligned to achieve maximum impact.

More information about the event available HERE.

The European Innovation Council is organising the second edition which will take place on 7-8 December 2022 in Brussels, in Tour & Taxi.

The first day of our flagship event will feature inspiring keynotes, major announcements and award the prestigious EIC Prizes. Mariya Gabriel, the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth will open the EIC Summit and the exhibition, join the session on New European Innovation Agenda and announce the winners of the EIC Women Innovators Prize and the iCapital Award. The first day will be web-streamed and open to a broader public.

The second day of the Summit will be fully dedicated to our EIC beneficiaries. The programme will be packed with a variety of practical workshops on finance, intellectual property rights (IPR), and deep-tech technology that will help our beneficiaries in their day-to-day work.

During the event, there will be plenty of opportunities for networking and meeting investors, EIC Board Members and Ambassadors or the EIC Programme Managers.

More information is available HERE.

We are very happy to welcome Jaroslava, who joined AMIRES and Energy & Sustainability team in October 2022. Jarka graduated from University of Economics in Prague with her studies focused on International Trade, European Integration and Anglo-American studies.

She gained her expertise in a public sector working for the Ministry of Industry and Trade: being responsible for OECD and EU research and development policies – fighting for national interests in this field. Furthermore, she actively worked on creation and development of frameworks and rules of EU funds (OPPIK – Operational programme for entrepreneurship, innovation and competitiveness) and National aid programme TRIO which was created to support projects especially in KETs and to enhance cooperation between research organisations and private companies. After five years’ experience in the area of Research, development and innovation she dedicated her further career to trade diplomacy and she gained experience at a position of trade officer for bilateral trade relations between the Czech Republic and China, Taiwan.

She loves to spend her days at the sea anywhere in the world. With respect to the fact that staying at the sea is not always possible – she loves to run away from Prague for weekends in nature. Besides of running away from the city life, she invests her time in her family and close friends, plays guitar, and loves to move her body. She doesn’t like complainers and all the injustice of the world. Ah – and Alain Delon is the only man in the world she would be willing to iron shirts for.

In AMIRES Jaroslava acts as a Project Manager in Horizon Europe SuPerTandem projects (sustainable materials for development of highly efficient all-perovskite photovoltaic modules) and Convert2Green (climate neutral materials in innovative products).

On the 4-5^th October 2022, a top-notch international research team met in Brussels to unite on the first steps of the SuPerTandem project which will bring Europe a novel low-cost environmental-friendly photovoltaic technology.

In the next 3 years the team will be developing an innovative, scalable, low CO2 footprint photovoltaic technology for highly efficient two-terminal tandem cells and modules based on perovskite absorbers.

The project is led by TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) and AMIRES being responsible for project management and dissemination. The full consortium consists of 15 partners – creating an ideal combination of RTOs, Universities and SMEs.

Stay tuned for updates!

INSPIRE projects has released a video! INSPIRE consortium aims to revolutionize photonic integrated circuit technology by combining the generic integrated foundry technology developed at Smart Photonics, and the silicon photonics pioneer IMEC, with the micro-transfer printing technology developed at X-Celeprint. INSPIRE has the ambition to strengthen the European manufacturing base by developing methods for SiN – InP integration which will remove expensive assembly steps in PIC-based product realization. Since the optical coupling happens through a silicon intermediate layer, the technology can be further ported to silicon CMOS photonics as well. INSPIRE will connect state-of-the-art manufacturing capability to leading-edge applications and also to industry clusters through JePPIX, ePIXfab and the EC manufacturing pilot lines. Learn more here. 

On the 6th of September, PANCAIM had its first of three review meetings with the European Commission and appointed external experts to assess the progress of the project. After a successful rehearsal meeting, the consortium members presented the progress and achievements of the first 1.5 years of the project, but also addressed challenges encountered, risks identified and mitigation strategies. The appointed external reviewers were satisfied with the progress and curious to learn more about the timeline for the upload of available data into the repository as well as the common data model which was developed specifically for PANCAIM’s multimodal approach. The intense preparations for the review provided for a new momentum for the consortium and the work has picked up speed to reach the expected milestones and objectives of the next few months.

For a deeper view into the scientific activities in PANCAIM, check out the recent article published by PANCAIM researchers in the journal Cancers – “Setting the Research Agenda for Clinical Artificial Intelligence in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Imaging” which provides a comprehensive review of the state of the art of AI in PDAC and the need for improvements which will be made by PANCAIM (Available open access here).

In order to support the further work in PANCAIM and especially development of multimodal AI which will speed up significantly in the coming months, PANCAIM partner university of Glashow has shared a call for both a PhD student as well as a Research Associate/Postdoc – please share these offers with anyone who might be interested and feel free to contact the PANCAIM team if you are interested. 

We’re thrilled to announce the publication of OASIS project video – Access smart, lightweight composite materials and components.

OASIS is an ecosystem of 12 nanotechnology manufacturing pilot lines providing nanomaterials, nano-intermediates, nano-enabled products and associated services for the development and commercialization of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites. It is a one-stop-shop offering the full suite of services from design and modelling to manufacturing, testing, scale-up and business support. Always tailored-made according to the customer’s requirements.

Find our more about the project OASIS here.

The Regenerative Medicine workshop organised by AMIRES Health & Biotech team will take place on Wednesday, October 12th, 2022 in a hybrid format – at the Technology Center CAS in Prague, as well as online.

The event will bring together different EU funded projects, initiatives and companies to exchange outcomes and experiences in the development of technologies in the regenerative medicine field. The online form for registrations is available here. 

We will discuss challenges and opportunities as well as best practices for innovations in regenerative medicine, among them:

• Laser Bioprinting for regenerative applications and organ on chips (TUMOR-LN-oC)
• EV-based therapeutics for cardiac repair and regeneration (MARVEL)
• New alternatives to chronic liver patients (ORGANTRANS)
• 3D printed personalized implantology and tissue substitute (Technical University of Kosice)
• Scaffold biomaterials: from ideation to clinical use (Volumina Medical)
• Economic and social impact of new therapies, medical device and emerging technologies (Betthera)

Click here to download the full agenda as PDF.

The event will close with a round table where speakers will exchange experiences on the challenges and hurdles of practical deployment of the new technologies in regenerative medicine.

Still not sure if you can join? Last-minute attendees are welcome! If you are interested in listening in, even for only few sessions, register here and connect using this Zoom link (the meeting opens on Wednesday 12.10. at 09:15 AM CEST). Participation is free of charge and open for all. 

We’re looking forward to welcoming our speakers and participants in Prague and online and hope to see you on Wednesday!

EuroSun is one of the main events on solar energy for buildings and industry in Europe. This year the conference took place in Kassel (Germany), from 26th to 29th September, and its organization was a joint effort of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) and the IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programme (IEA SHC).

More than 480 participants from over 50 countries joined EuroSun and contributed with speeches, workshops, and presentations. In particular, FRIENDSHIP took part in the session “System Modelling, Artificial Intelligence, Digitalization”, where the Project Coordinator, Valery Vuillerme, presented the poster below entitled “Data Clustering and Genetic Algorithm for the Design Optimization of a Hybrid Concentrated Solar System for SHIP”.

Since the beginning of ComBioTES, CEA, IEO, Voltalis and DTU have been working on the analysis of technical specifications and requirements for components of thermal energy storage (TES), to extract the full potential of the future system. They have also focused on system integration within buildings and consumer behaviour in the heating and electricity markets of several countries. As a result, now the project has a clear understanding of the technical challenges to overcome and a complete characterization of the market. Nevertheless, the team responsible of the task decided to limit long term predictions, as the unstable time we live in would have surely proved them wrong.

As a first step, IEO and Voltalis took into consideration 10 use cases, which refer mostly to power market rules and electricity tariffs for consumers in different countries in Europe and China. They categorized them into three general schemes: Use cases for power-to-heat with load shifting within the framework of time-of-use tariffs, use cases for PV prosumers, and capacity market use case.

At the same time, CEA identified technical constraints, specific constraints linked to the four demonstration sites and legal risks due to different National regulations. The constraints identified will be useful for the design of the TES, mostly to avoid considering designs that are not feasible, or whose installation on the different demonstration sites would be hazardous.

Finally, DTU made an overview of possible communication interfaces related to the energy management system (EMS) that could be applied in ComBioTES. Taking the Use cases defined previously as an input, they delivered technical specifications and a guideline for integrating the design and development of EMS and the TES component, from a function perspective.

More news about the TES design, the EMS setup and market analysis will follow!

Our team in AMIRES has a suite of exciting industrial and innovation projects in Energy and Sustainable programme underway (funded especially by Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe), and we are looking for the right candidate to help us execute them in the marketing role.

Our Junior Marketing Specialist will get involved in creating and running projects promotion campaigns and their content including social media and email marketing. Apart from that s/he will take care of the AMIRES brand and its continuous development.

Is Marketing your passion? Are you not scared of technical and innovative topics? Are you keen to learn and grown? If you answered YES, let us know, we are already looking forward to speak with you!

Click here to learn more about the role.

A prototype of TES (Thermal Energy Storage) is being designed for later tests at CEA, on two experimental facilities, with different Heat Transfer Fluids (HTF) -pressurized water and thermal oil- and operating ranges. Several heat exchangers designs have been considered, using parallel or concentric tubes, with or without inserts, in square or triangular array. A feasibility study was also conducted to investigate if extruded aluminium tubes could be used as HTF containers in the necessary temperature and pressure conditions. Thanks to this study, CEA has all the required documents to consult manufacturers for the CHS prototype, such as drawings and thermo-mechanical calculation notes in compliance with the European Pressurized Equipment Directive.

A suitable candidate for the PCM to be used in the storage unit was also characterized, thanks to thermogravimetric analysis, calorimeter evaluations, density measurement and heating cycles.

In September, our AMIRES family welcomed Olja Kristic, who joined us as a Project Manager in Energy & Sustainability programme.

Olja obtained a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Novi Sad in Serbia in 2012. Then, she continued working in the bioenergy sector in Serbia, Hungary and Germany – that is how she gained experience in research and international projects, market development and renewable bioenergy technologies.

Before joining us, Olja worked as a Project Manager in the European Commission in Brussels. The five years she spent there allowed her to learn a lot about the EU R&D funding framework, especially the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe Programmes, procedures and policies.

In AMIRES, Olja is managing Horizon Europe projects ECOTRON (How to minimize the ecological footprint for functional electronics?) and InVECOF (Innovative Value Chains for European Ceramic Oxide Fibres). She is also involved in proposals in Energy & Sustainability Programme.
In her free time, Olja likes to take long walks or go hiking. She is also very passionate about food and likes to explore new recipes and different cuisines.

We are happy to have Olja on board and we wish her the best of luck!

After a successful project launch in May, eCAP website is now online.

Visit the eCAP webpage to find out more about the gastroesophageal reflux epidemic, reasons for Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) being severely underdiagnosed and what is eCAP consortium doing to help.

You can also get to know the project partners and ABIMI team involved and reach out to them for additional information via a dedicated contact form. The news section will keep you updated on the latest developments and project progress.

Click HERE and happy exploring!

AMIRES is committed to provide broad support to innovation, therefore we have partnered with prototyping and upscaling experts from KETMarket:

In the recent years, multiple Open Innovation Networks have been established in Europe to support small and medium enterprises (SME) and industry in developing new products faster and more efficient. All these networks gather leading universities, applied research organizations and companies offering bundled development services.

These networks include:

1. Open Innovation Test Beds – support you in testing your idea and accessing all necessary technologies & services for your product development
2. Open Access Pilot Lines – provide pilot and small series OEM manufacturing services for new products for earlier market deployment
3. Digital Innovation Hubs – guide you through the digital transition and make your processes more efficient through digital technologies

Some of the networks recently launched open calls, though which you may receive subsidized access to the technical and innovation services provided by the networks with a budget between 60,000 … 150,000 €.

How does it work:

You submit a short (2-5 page) proposal describing your idea and the required services. If your project is selected, the network will deliver their services with 70 – 100% discount as selected projects are supported by the European Commission!

The following networks have currently an active open call:

• FlexFunction2Sustain: Sustainable packaging, flexible electronics, and nano-enabled ecofriendly plastics and paper products. Deadline 27/01/2023
• NewSkin: Services to manufacture and characterize a wide range of nano-enabled products on metal and plastic surfaces. Deadline 31/12/2022
• NextGenMicrofluidics: Foil based microfluidic chips (lab-on-a-foil) or microfluidic composite devices. Submission is continuously open.
• PHABULOµS: Pilot manufacturing of free-form micro-optics and microstructured surfaces on wafer, sheets, and rolls: Deadline: 30/11/2022
• PHOTONHUB Europe: Photonics in a Broad Range of Applications: Test before Invest, Investor Access, Training and more. Submission is continuously open  

KETMarket will select for you the most suited innovation network and guides you through the application process. Describe and submit your product development needs today by visiting their WEBSITE.  

Or call them directly: +49 351 828 793 0

You are looking for more funding opportunities: Browse their funding database HERE.

Browse their technology and innovation database HERE.

On 23-24 August, AMIRES attended the 2^nd Next Gen Organ-on-Chip & Organoids workshop organized by the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) by WEDER Gilles, PAOLETTI Samantha, REVOL Vincent, etc. in Geneva, Switzerland. CSEM also coordinates the EU-funded OrganTrans project in which AMIRES is a partner. AMIRES was represented by the attendance of our colleague Dr. Yevhen Horokhovatskyi.

Organoids are small, self-organized 3D tissue cultures derived from stem cells (body’s raw materials from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated) that can be crafted to replicate much of the complexity of an organ. This way of culturing tissues gives scientists a detailed view of how organs form and grow, providing them with new insights into human development and disease.

At the same time, the combination of biomimicry (organ-on-chip systems) and self-assembly (organoids) technologies can emulate the physiological environment and functionality of human organs on a chip for disAt the same time, the Organ-on-a-Chip is a cutting-edge technology that can emulate the physiological environment and functionality of human organs on a chip. This allows disease modelling and drug testing, giving the opportunity to see how drugs interact with these “mini-organs”, potentially revolutionizing the field of drug discovery and opening new approaches to personalized medicine. All of this, eventually, shows great potential in the novel drug development pipeline and future regenerative therapies.

When CSEM first organized the Next Gen Organ-on-Chip & Organoids workshop in 2020 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, it aroused great interest among both life science companies and research organizations. At CSEM first organized the Next Gen Organ-on-Chip & Organoids workshop in 2020 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and aroused great interest to this topic mainly among life science companies. At that time, many specialists, researchers, and leading industries attended this event presenting technical challenges and solutions in the application of the next generation organ-on-chip and organoids in disease modeling, drug testing, and organ replacement. Due to the COVID pandemics, CSEM organized also virtual events within this topic to replace the in-person event. However, after two years, CSEM hosted the 2nd networking workshop that had great success. Four partners of the OrganTrans project, CSEM, REGENHU, KUGELMEIERS, AMIRES, and more than 270 experts from the pharma & biotech industry, clinicians, organ-on-chip suppliers, regulatory experts, and researchers met under the same roof. Additionally, more than 25 organizations, including start-ups, large companies, and SMEs, presented their innovative products and emerging technologies at exhibition sessions.

Overall, the workshop focus was on the applications of organoids, 3D cell-based and organ-on-chip technologies for drug discovery and development, diagnostics, consumer safety, future regenerative therapies and organ replacement. The speakers presented data on the validation of the newest technologies of organ-on-chip, such as brain, kidney, lung, intestine, stomach, liver and many more. These chips are based on microfluidics, deep machine learning, automatized systems, and even personalized 3D bioprinting platforms. Such technologies complement the development of better disease organoid models, as well as the understanding of the different levels of interaction fostering future therapeutic approaches to human and animal health. However, the translation of this novel engineering platform into routine pharmacological and medical scenarios remains to be realized.

We are happy to say that we regularly open our door for a university student for an internship. Thanks to cooperation with IAESTE that is an international, non-governmental, non-profit organization that brings together students and academics around the world and strives for the professional and personal development of students and young graduates we were happy to welcome during this summer our intern Sowmya who arrived from India.

Here is what she says about her internship:

“I am Sowmya Ashok Kumar, an M. Tech (Master’s in Technology) Biotechnology graduate from Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, India. I have always leaned towards research and development, which acted as a driving force for me to choose biotechnology which opened many opportunities to explore and learn fascinating concepts like how a single nucleotide can cause a radical difference in an organism. It completely changed my perspective on life and how research works. Apart from my course, I have worked on various projects with efficient product development. I was delighted to find this internship offer during my final semester through IAESTE, an international organization that coordinates internships for students and I applied for the same.

I was super excited about this offer, and my first trip to Europe. It was the best decision to apply for AMIRES, as the work culture was completely new to me, yet everyone was so kind and helped me adapt quickly. I got to work with new and upcoming concepts in LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), where I was free to explore different databases and software. It was a highly informative and creative process to discover various methods for modelling the life cycle of a product and assessing its sustainability and environmental impact on society. Thank you IAESTE and AMIRES for providing this great opportunity, which was a huge exposure for me.”

We thank Sowmya for her effort and help and we wish her all the best with her future!

AMIRES is part of a consortium which has recently secured funding for the MatEl project – PZT and Graphene MATerials innovations for advanced opto-Electronic applications in AR and biosensing – which has ambitious goals.

Europe’s leading position in photonics and electronics can only be secured by adapting to the next generation of optoelectronic devices requirements: high performance, multi-functionality and cost efficiency in miniaturized footprint. These can only be achieved if novel schemes for on-chip integration emerge. Among the established platforms for optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs), silicon nitride as a wide-band and low-loss material stands outs. However, Si3N4 itself has no active effect and the heterogeneous integration of active III-V and II-VI semiconductor chips is currently very complicated and costly. MatEl offers a unique solution to this challenge and promises to enable a novel on-chip integration scheme: Laser Digital Processing – Laser Transfer and Laser Soldering – will be employed for the accurate and fast alignment and bonding of any type of chip package (OEIC) on Si3N4. The hybrid platform will be enhanced by the monolithic integration of advanced materials (graphene and high-quality PZT), which will enable multiple functionalities in miniaturized footprint. MatEl will thus demonstrate two next-gen optoelectronic devices at TRL5: 1) 2D light source for AR displays with integrated RGB lasers and OEIC-based demultiplexers. 2) Bio-photonic sensor for antibodies detection with on-chip VCSEL at 850 nm featuring graphene photodetectors. Overall, MatEl ’s hybrid platform will combine the wide bandwidth and high confinement provided by Si3N4 with the active functionality of III-V and II-VI lasers, supporting a broad spectrum of next-gen applications, extending far beyond these demo applications. Hence, MatEl will reinforce the existing collaborations within the consortium and introduce new eco-systems, estimated to strengthen the EU photonics and microelectronics industrial capability by generating multi M€ turnovers to the involved SMEs and more than 200 new employment positions by the end of its timeframe.

We’re looking forward to starting the work soon and supporting the development of game changing technologies in the opto-electronics field.

Bringing together policymakers, researchers, entrepreneurs and the public to debate and shape the future of research and innovation in Europe and beyond.

The event will take place online on 28 and 29 September 2022, allowing everyone to get involved from anywhere.

his year’s European Research and Innovation Days gives you the opportunity to discuss and shape new solutions to strengthen Europe’s resilience and its strategic autonomy. Join the event to debate how research and innovation deliver on the European Commission’s priorities.

More information and registration is available HERE.

In May 2022, the InVECOF project was launched. InVECOF addresses the development of a European oxide fibre and O-CMC component industry, decreasing dependence on non-EU producers.

InVECOF aims at creating a commercially available market within the EU for manufacturers of fabrics and O-CMCs (oxide ceramic matrix composites). Both O-CMC manufacturers and industrial end-users will exploit these new fibres in their manufacturing due to their superior performance and ensured security of supply.

The InVECOF project is led by Fraunhofer ISC and AMIRES is responsible for project management and dissemination. The consortium consists of RTO institutions, industrial producers of ceramic fibres and their end-users from aerospace and manufacturing industry from five EU countries.

Stay tuned for more up to date information and the website which will be launched shortly.

In June, the European Commission launched the second Women TechEU call. Following the very encouraging response to the first pilot in 2021, the Commission is more than doubling the budget to EUR 10 million this year, which is expected to fund up to 130 companies.

Women TechEU provides support to women-led startups at the earliest, riskiest stage of their company’s growth. In addition to a EUR 75 000 grant, the finalists receive mentoring and coaching for leadership, internationalisation, business modelling, implementation strategy, market entry, fundraising, negotiating with investors, and much more, through the EIC’s Women Leadership Programme.

By supporting women-led deep tech startups, the European Commission aims to create an equal and more prosperous European deep-tech ecosystem. In addition, the Women TechEU scheme promotes female leaders in their industries but also in their capacity of decision-makers.

This scheme is funded under the European Innovation Ecosystems work programme of Horizon Europe, with support from the European Innovation Council (EIC).

More information available HERE.

Do you want to know more about the calls and how to apply? On 07 September 2022, the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) is organising an informative webinar to learn more about the European Innovation Ecosystems Work Programme (EIE) and the Startup Europe initiative under the European Innovation Council Work Programme 2022.

The focus will be on:

• building interconnected innovation ecosystems across Europe that foster inclusiveness (CONNECT destination)
• reinforcing network connectivity within and between innovation ecosystems for sustainable business growth in Europe (SCALEUP destination). This includes support to women-led companies in deep tech (Women TechEU call).
• building synergies with the wider European startup ecosystem via the second wave of actions under the Commission’s Startup Europe initiative (STARTUPEU call).

Five calls are currently open for various types of innovation ecosystem stakeholders. The deadline for submissions is 27 September 2022 for the CONNECT calls, 04 October 2022 for SCALEUP and Women TechEU, and 17 November 2022 for the STARTUPEU Call.

More information HERE.

Register HERE.

To reinforce our team, weare opening position for a Project Manager of European R&D&I projects in Deep Tech domain. The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of Horizon Europe projects and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals.

Are you ready to work in international environment? Are you ready to meet colleagues in the office? Do you enjoy communication and admin work? Are you eager to learn new things? If yes, then we are waiting for you!

See more details HERE. We are already looking forward to see you!

Do you enjoy creating content? Are you fluent in digital media and interested in research, development and innovation projects?

If so, you would fit perfectly into our new open role in AMIRES. We are looking for a Junior Marketing Specialist to help us create and run innovation projects promotion campaigns and their content including social media and email marketing.

Read the whole job announcement HERE and submit your application till 12^th of August 2022.

In June, a very important event took place – not only for AMIRES, but for the whole European community working in the Industrial Technologies sector. Together with CEA, we organized IndTech2022 in Grenoble, France. Luckily, almost all of our team could be there.

Alongside inspiring sessions and workshops, the event created a space for various organizations and projects representatives to present themselves and network.

You could find us at the stand of AMIRES itself where you could find out about all our activities, but also in the villages, where our colleagues were happy to share information on the projects they were working on – FlexFunction2sustain, MedPhab, Phabulous & OASIS.

For more information, photos from the Conference and presentations, click HERE.

Watch the new video about the FlexFunction2Sustain project to learn more about the Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) for sustainable and smart products powered by nano-functionalized paper and plastic. The project aims to support small, medium-sized and large companies in the development and market launch of pioneering products through an ecosystem which:

• provides users an easy access to holistic innovation services through a  Single Entry Point;
• covers the whole range of services in the field of nano-functionalised materials;
• offers complementary technical facilities as well as business solutions.

Enjoy watching!

Nowadays, nanobiomaterials are extremely beneficial in many applications in health and medicine. Whilst nanobiomaterials offer various exciting new opportunities, their translation to the wider application in clinics is still slow. In this context, the #review published in Drug Delivery and Translational Research Journal by Melissa Anne Tutty, Dania Movia, Adriele Prina-Mello from Trinity Dublin College, Ireland presents the state of the art in the pre-clinical assessment of nanobiomaterials. In addition, this article describes the limitations of the current in vitro and in vivo liver models, and how tissue-mimetic 3D cell culture models can overcome such limitations, assisting in the translation of nanobiomaterials to the clinic.

Our project ORGANTRANS was mentioned in this article, as a bright example of the complex liver model creation enabled by innovative technologies, e.g. biofabrication offered by the #bioengineering company REGENHU. ORGANTRANS project consortium, coordinated by the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) and formed by eight partners, two of which are transplantation centers, generates a 3D bioprinting liver tissue platform to potentially replace liver transplantation for patients with end-stage liver failure. ORGANTRANS will cover the complete cycle of development from cell sourcing and tissue bioengineering to clinical trials. Moreover, it is ORGANTRANS’s ambition that this novel technique can not only be applied to hepatic systems but also to other organ systems in regenerative medicine. Find out more about the review and ORGANTRANS project HERE.

After two and half years of the start of MedPhab, pilot line for photonics-based medical devices, the consortium was able to meet in person again in Oulu, Finland hosted by VTT on 15 and 16 of June 2022. Last time this happened was in January 2020 in Brussels during the kick off meeting, when plans of the pilot line were presented.  From that moment until this meeting many things have happened in the progress of MedPhab: technology map was defined, model cases (in vitro and in vivo diagnostics) finalized and published, use cases (in vitro, in vivo diagnostics: hospital use and home use) defined their specifications and are going into prototyping and integration. In addition, we had the launch of the open calls, receiving so far 20 companies in-take forms and the preparation of the first drafts of business and sustainability models of MedPhab. During this meeting (Month 30) the advancements on each of these topics were presented and deeply discussed.

One and half years are awaiting ahead of us, contributing to MedPhab’s main objective: accelerate the photonic devices development and industrialization for medical applications. Do not miss any updates and consult HERE.

We would like to introduce our new colleague Anna who joined our team May 2022.

Anna responded to our opened position for a Ukrainians and we found her experiences as a great fit for a Junior Marketing Specialist position. We are honestly happy that we can be a support to her in these times. Moreover, we are thrilled to share that AMIRES together sent 2 100 € to the account of the Ukraine Ministry of Social Policy.

More about Anna, originally from Ukraine, she graduated from The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands with a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration.

Through her various academic and practical experiences, she obtained thorough knowledge in the fields of policymaking, memory politics and conflict resolution. Anna acquired a profound understanding of EU affairs and policies through her traineeship at EuroClio, where she worked on fundraising and outreach for several EU-funded projects. In her role as a Social Media Coordinator and Research Associate at the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation, she supervised researchers and managed the online presence of the Contested Histories project.

In AMIRES, Anna is involved in H2020 projects Switch2Save and is supporting other projects in Energy & Sustainability programme.

Welcome to the team Anna!

The European Commission has opened on the 16^th June a registrations for this year’s European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) 2022. Under the theme “Going green and digital for Europe’s energy transition”, the event will take place from 26^th to 30^th September.

This year’s EUSEW will be organised in a hybrid format, both online and physical. Participants are invited to register and can chose to join the event on-site at the in Brussels or online to engage in discussions on different issues linked to the overall theme.

EUSEW 2022 highlights include:

• The EUSEW Policy Conference, from 26^th to 29^th September. Main topics include REPowerEU, the digitalisation and integration of energy systems, energy efficiency, renewables, consumers and a fair energy transition, decarbonisation policies and international cooperation. Sessions are organised by the European Commission and energy stakeholders and include high-level speakers to discuss, debate and share best practices.
• The prestigious Awards Ceremony for the European Sustainable Energy Awards, taking place on 26^th September, in the presence of Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, recognising individuals and projects for outstanding efforts across four categories: innovation, local energy action, woman in energy and young energy trailblazer.  
• The third edition of the European Youth Energy Day , taking place on 26 September within the activities of the 2022 European Year of Youth.  
• A series of networking activities during the whole week where participants can connect with other members of the sustainable energy community, including a hybrid energy fair that gives organisations and associations the opportunity to showcase their initiatives and interact with participants and a series of energy talks.
• The EUSEW extended programme, from 19 to 23 September, featuring 40 sessions leading up to the EUSEW Policy Conference.
• From June to September, locally organised Sustainable Energy Days taking place around the world to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

More information is available HERE.

On 4 May 2022, a kick-off meeting took place for the eCAP project: recipient of a €4.7 million grant from the European Union’s Research and Innovation Programme Horizon Europe. The aim of the project is to deliver a novel medical device combining a smart capsule with an e-health platform to enable better diagnostics, patient empowered disease management and hence, improved outcomes for patients with gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, a major source of population morbidity and care costs worldwide.

The consortium, composed of 10 partners from research organisations and industry across Europe and Kenya, will demonstrate the universality of the eCAP solution in clinical trials in France as well as low resource environments by bringing the device to patients who so far have had limited access to GI disease diagnostics.

AMIRES is proud to support the project management and dissemination activities in the project.

Read more on our plans in the press release here.

 

 

 

Do you like challenges and adventures? Do you want to climb with us not only to the mountain peaks?

Go beyond the Horizon with our team and join us!

To reinforce our team, AMIRES (Czech Republic) is opening positions for Project Manager of European R&D&I projects in Energy & Sustainability domain. The chosen candidates will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of H2020 / HE projects and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals.

Find out more HERE.

We are already looking forward to welcome you on board!

On the 30th and 31st of May, the ORGANTRANS consortium met for the M30 meeting hosted by one of our partners, DWI Leibniz-Institute for Interactive Materials located in Aachen, Germany. The goal of this meeting was to share the latest progress and to discuss further steps needed for the final phase of the project. In principle, the entire development cycle from cell source and tissue engineering to a fully functional liver tissue 3D printing platform is almost finished. Nevertheless, the remained final phase of the project will include the synchronization and integration of work stages of all the systems and further testing in a relevant environment. The platform to create liver constructs developed within the ORGANTRANS project is a future alternative for organ transplantation medicine as it proposes a disruptive alternative to donor organs for patients with chronic end-stage liver diseases. Importantly, this research creates novel technologies that can be applied to other organ systems in the field of regenerative medicine.
To learn more about the project, click HERE.

On 23-24 May 2022, the INSPIRE consortium met in-person for the first time at TU/e to celebrate the 17 months of successful project implementation and to review the progress achieved so far. INSPIRE project responds to the ever-increasing need of high-performance PICs by combining the three dominant photonic platforms, Indium phosphide, Silicon nitride and Silicon (CMOS), with the aim of creating and leveraging volume manufacturing techniques. The industrial viability will be validated through process transfer into a pilot line foundry process and multi-coupon transfer printing to enhance the throughput and yield of the transfer printing process. To gain insights regarding the route to volume production, the consortium invited a member of our Industrial Advisory Board, Hitesh Ballani Microsoft Research Cambridge who shared his views on the topic. As a part of the meeting, partners had the opportunity to visit TU/e´s lab and cleanroom facilities.

We are looking forward to continuing the work on the project for 2 more years!

Discover INSPIRE project HERE. 

The European Commission has announced additional €11.7 million to strengthen the European Innovation Ecosystems.

The European Commission has adopted the amended European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE) 2021-2022 Work Programme under Horizon Europe. It provides new funding opportunities for deep-tech start-ups led by women and the EU angel investment industry on top of existing actions that aim to create more connected and efficient innovation ecosystems.

The amended work programme clarifies the COFUND rate in the context of the forthcoming EIE calls due to open for submission on 14 June:

HORIZON-EIE-2022-CONNECT-02-01: Implementing co-funded action plans for interconnection of innovation ecosystems (budget: €8 million)

HORIZON-EIE-2022-CONNECT-02-02: Stimulating innovation procurement (budget: €4.5 million)

Standard changes to the HORIZON-EIE-2022-SCALEUP-02-01 Expanding Investments Ecosystems call conditions for lump sum topics were applied. 

The call has a total budget of €5 million and will open for submission on 21 June 2022.

More information is available here. The work programme document is available here.

On 19^th – 20^th of May, CONDOR team met to sum up the achievements for the first 18 months and to plan future actions in the project. Hosted by AMIRES in Prague, Czech Republic, the consortium had the chance to reunite after the COVID-19 outbreak, which represented the first in-person meeting for the team.

The CONDOR partners seized the opportunity to show their progress from a scientific perspective with regard to the project’s ultimate goal to develop an innovative renewable energy system for fuel productions. Each work package leader gave a presentation to share insight into the work performed for the development of CONDOR device. The partners reviewed the progress in the synthesis and modelling of molecular catalysts and the preparation of photoanodes for water, chloride or biomass oxidation, and (photo)cathodes for syngas production. The discussions also covered the ongoing parallel activities aimed at syngas conversion to fuels by thermal or photoactivated processes.
Summing up the first 18 months of the project, it is worth saying that the achieved results are aligned with the planned objectives. Overall, the project is well on track and the first 11 deliverables were submitted as well as the planned milestones were reached on time.
Coordinated by the University of Bologna, the CONDOR project connects well reputed technology development teams and key industrial partners. In the project, AMIRES is responsible for the project management and leads the work package dedicated to the communication and dissemination of results and exploitation activities.

More information for CONDOR project can be found HERE.

Glass is considered one of the integral components of modern architectural design. Think about today’s office buildings, airport terminals, train stations and shopping centers – their designs often incorporate glass façades or roofs. Glass is attractive, versatile and provides a visual connection with the outside world, which is why large-area glazing remains a continuing trend.

However, large glass areas can significantly increase the energy demands for cooling and air conditioning in summer. In fact, modern buildings with large glass components consume up to 100% more energy each year than buildings with small windows. With the aim of reducing energy demands in buildings featuring glass façades, roofs or large window-to-wall areas, the EU-funded Switch2save project is holding an Architectural Design Competition to collect energy saving design concepts for such buildings.

The competition focuses on non-residential sites – either new or renovation projects – and sets no design restrictions regarding the site size, location or climate. Participants are invited to submit design concepts which include an optimum exploitation of the Switch2Save electrochromic (EC) and thermochromic (TC) smart glass technologies. These are transparent energy-smart materials with switchable total energy transmission values to control the transfer of solar radiation into the building. EC and TC technologies also have the added advantage of providing greater indoor lighting comfort than conventional mechanical window blinds.

The competition is open to young architects, students, and/or multidisciplinary teams that include building physicists or engineers and are led by young architects or students enrolled in an academic programme from an accredited educational institution. Teams can have up to three members of any nationality.

For more information about the competition terms, important dates and the exciting awards, check the Switch2Save website.

To participate in the competition, register HERE.

The Switch2Save (Lightweight switchable smart solutions for energy saving large windows and glass façades) project aims to help make electrochromic (EC) and thermochromic (TC) smart glass technologies more easily available and affordable so as to contribute to the EU’s goal to become climate-neutral by 2050. The project is demonstrating the potential of its two representative buildings – Greece’s second largest hospital in Athens and an operational office building in Uppsala, Sweden. A total of 50 windows and 200 m2 of glass façades will be replaced with a switchable smart glass solution, following which a “before–after” comparison will be conducted of the energy consumption in both buildings for one year.

The Horizon 2020 project FRIENDSHIP reached the halfway milestone this month and for the occasion the whole consortium met for the first time, in Sweden.

The meeting started with the projection of the film: “Our Planet: Our Business” by David Attenborough, to remind about the vital role companies have in building a sustainable future.

On the agenda, an overview of the progress in the running Work Packages was presented. In addition to that, in the Third General Assembly, the consortium had also the opportunity to discuss management plans and implementations within the project. The second day, instead, was dedicated to technical discussions and to future collaborations among partners.

During the meeting, FRIENDSHIP also received very valuable feedback and suggestions by Mr. Thomas Ammerl, External Advisory Board member from BAYFOR.

The event was hosted by ABSOLICON who provided insight into the concentrated solar collectors they developed.

Future looks bright for FRIENDSHIP!

Two years after the start of the project, FlexFunction2Sustain published an overview highlighting the achievements of the first half of its implementation. AMIRES, together with eighteen consortium members, coordinated by Fraunhofer-FEP , work to attain the ultimate goal to establish a sustainable Open Innovation Test Bed to boost innovations for sustainable plastic and paper products to reach the market faster.

The first half of the project was dedicated to set up both business model and legal structure of the ecosystem. In parallel, the technical facilities of the consortium members have been upgraded for processing of novel bio-based, bio-degradable and/or recyclable plastic and paper based materials that shall replace the state-of-the-art mineral oil based plastic products in e.g. packaging applications. All facilities and technological solutions developed within FlexFunction2Sustain are being verified in six industrial use case scenarios that cover food and non-food packaging, biodegradable security labels, switchable water filter membranes and innovative multi-functional electronic surfaces in automotive applications. At month 24 of the project, the partners successfully demonstrated roll-to-roll processing of bio-degradable micro-structured surfaces for security labels; roll-to-roll manufacturing of conductive PET based membranes for filter applications; demonstrators of fully recyclable drink pouches and operational organic solar cells that were deposited on recycled PET films. In order to accelerate the uptake of the OITB services, FlexFunction2Sustain launched an Open Call targeted to the interested external companies. Following a competitive selection process, up to 20 pre-commercial business cases (pilot cases projects) will be selected to receive discounted services from the OITB members.

Discover more about the main advancements by Month-24 by downloading the overview presentation HERE.

SINTEF and CEA are investigating different innovative solutions for absorption cooling at -20°C and -40°C from 100-250°C solar heat, in particular a GAX (Generator-Absorber heat eXchange) cycle based on commercial components, like Plate Heat Exchangers (PHE). This innovative design improves the heat and mass transfers, thus performance. In addition, manufacturing costs decrease, as the needed components are standardized and available in the market. A numerical study allows identifying the best solutions for the SHIP integration, giving an overview on the operating temperature ranges for each cycle. Thanks to these concepts, which led to the definition of technical sheets, a prototype of a GAX cycle for -20°C cooling will be realized, the choice on the final architecture will be made further on, when the market search will have provided the necessary economic data.

The work on the optimal design of the ejector chiller, targeting cold production down to 5°C (short term) and -10°C (long-term) is also being studied both on the process level and the component level. On the process level, SINTEF is working with the partners to optimize the cycle architecture and the choice of working fluid. On the component level, a detailed ejector model has been developed in a recently submitted publication. This model can for the first time can calculate the local entropy production through the ejector, which allows identifying the optimal ejector geometry as that which minimizes the entropy production.

Today we would like to introduce our team member Yevhen who started working for us in September 2020 as a Project Manager. He has a bachelor’s degree in Applied Physics from the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. At the same university he obtained his Master of Science degree with honour from Medical Biophysics in 2014. In 2018 he received his Ph.D. in Cryobiology from the University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice which was a part of the Horizon 2020 research infrastructure project.

During his studies he cooperated with leading specialists from all over the world and took part in several international research projects and development programmes as a coordinator as well as a member of a research team. Apart from that, he was also actively involved in supervising of master’s students, teaching, publication in scientific journals and presentation of research findings at international conferences. He also gained experience in implementation of new standards, legislation, quality assurance codes and audit during elaboration and production phases of medical devices.

In AMIRES, Yevhen is responsible for H2020 project MARVEL (Evolving reversible immunocapture by membrane sensing peptides: towards scalable extracellular vesicles isolation) and acts as a Dissemination Manager of ORGANTRANS project.

About his work Yevhen said: “I was looking for the way how to improve the world – with AMIRES I found it! Contributing to different projects that bring fantastic technologies into reality I feel that I contribute to improving the quality of life in our world, and this is perfectly aligned with my life philosophy”.

In his free time, he likes to invent different things or improve the existing ones. This refers to electronics, computer technologies, tuning of transport such as bikes or cars, and work with design in both virtual and material environments. Apart from this, he’s passionate about mobile photography and video making, which are also quite often applied for project dissemination. It is worth saying that the sports activities are not staying in the last place, cycling and workout are the most enjoyable for him. Traveling, seeing new cities and countries, and hiking in beautiful nature are also on his interest list. 

In September 2021, the FlexFunction2Sustain launched an Open Call for Pilot Case projects. The first round of evaluations resulted in four companies which were successfully selected. The winners will receive subsidized access to the innovation services of the FlexFunction2Sustain Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) which supports and accelerates the development of novel products and technologies for smart and sustainable plastics and paper solutions. The selected projects will tackle the plastic pollution challenges by developing sustainable and flexible packaging and plastic films for agriculture. The successful applicants are companies from different European countries – France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland.

The FlexFunction2Sustain Open Call is targeted to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) & start-ups which wants to develop and test novel nano-functionalised plastic and paper membrane and surfaces. The next cut-off dates for application are: 29^th of July 2022, and 27^th of January 2023. Applicants can apply anytime during this period.

In the process, AMIRES is in charge of the preparation and execution of the Open Call and the establishment of a Helpdesk to provide a contact point for the potential applicants and address their enquiries about the application preparation and submission process.

For more information about the FlexFunction2Sustain OITB and the innovation services which will be provided to the Pilot Case projects, visit the project website.

On the 14th April the EIC published a report on realising the deep-tech entrepreneurial talent of Europe. In this report, the expert group recommends that the European Innovation Council (EIC) creates two ambitious deep-tech training programmes – the Trailblazer and the Pioneer – to foster technological solutions and realise human entrepreneurial talent.

The “raison d’être” of the EIC is to realise and accelerate breakthrough innovation for rapid market growth as well as to promote the European Union’s strategic autonomy. The European innovation ecosystem being fragmented, providers of solutions or proto-solutions are sparse and unwilling/ unable to take the necessary risk. The expert group recommends that the EIC takes the responsibility to grow the human talent, the scientific entrepreneurs who can bring the development of breakthrough technologies to the market. To attain these goals, they present how this could be done.

Read the full report HERE.

On the occasion of the first year of ComBioTES implementation, the project team met on 7^th and 8^th  April 2022, in Grenoble (France), hosted by CEA.

At the beginning of the meeting, the coordinator of ComBioTES presented the project’s progress and summarized the first year of work. On the agenda, an overview of the achievements during the last 12 months in the running Work Packages was presented. In addition to that, in the Second General Assembly, the consortium had also the opportunity to discuss some management activities within the project.

The second day, instead, was dedicated to technical discussions and to answer some crucial questions that were still open. One of the partners from China, IEE-CAS, had the chance to present the progress of their work on Bio PCM and ice storage. 

The meetings proved very fruitful on all fronts, and project partners reached a vision of the tasks at hand over the next months.

Visit ComBioTES website to know more about the project.

FRIENDSHIP project is pleased to announce that our newest paper about nanofluids is now published online in the journal of Applied Thermal Engineering.

The paper, written by SINTEF Energy Research and CEA, is based on the research work on the use of nanofluids as heat-transfer fluids in solar collectors.

The article, A review of the use of nanofluids as heat-transfer fluids in parabolic-trough collectors, reviews the application of nanofluids to solar collectors, and parabolic-trough collectors in particular, at temperatures between 100 °C and 300 °C. Recent advances and research on nanofluids are presented, particularly the progress in understanding stability mechanisms, characterization, and preparation methods, as well as their thermophysical properties.

Congratulations to the authors!

In-person dialog and exchange are crucial and for flexible, organic and printed electronics, the LOPEC exhibition and conference is the place to be. LOPEC was able to celebrate a successful return as an on-site event after a two-year break!

A total of 156 exhibitors from 23 countries showed innovations and trends in printed electronics. The focus topics included mobility and smart living.

The Conference was also a great success with around 200 presentations. This makes LOPEC once again the world’s leading communication platform for technology, solutions, knowledge, and research in the printed electronics industry.

AMIRES was lucky to attend the whole week of events – starting by the OE-A meeting on Monday 21^st March and continuing with the conference and exhibition from the 22^nd till the 24^th March – to meet project partners, long-term clients and to establish new connections. Several AMIRES projects were presented in booths, posters and by project partners and it was definitely a unique opportunity to strengthen our collaborations.

OE-A meeting

The OE-A, as the LOPEC organiser, initiated the week by organising a Members’ Meeting, which consisted of presentations and workshops within this year’s theme Mobility & Smart Living. Topics that were discussed were for example on marketing and recyclability of organic and printed electronics. After 3 years, new and existing members of the association could finally meet in person and benefit of this networking opportunity.

Project SmartEEs

The SmartEEs project aims to establish a sustainable EU-wide network in the field of Flexible & Wearable Electronics. The objective of SmartEEs is to help European industries accelerate their digital transition, offering them easy access to Flexible & Wearable Electronics technologies, products, and services throughout Europe.

The SmartEEs project promoted its results and demonstrated on various booths and organised a dedicated workshop focusing in detail on application experiments, training activities, and the presentation of the SmartEEs Marketplace.

LOPEC was also the perfect opportunity to introduce the European Flexible and Wearable Electronics Association (FWEA), which will serve as the continuation of the project, offering RDI & business development opportunities as well as access to finance, education & training, and guidance on electronics for a sustainable economy.

Project Smart2Go

The EU funded Smart2Go project was present at the LOPEC exhibition with the ATOMIC ski demonstrator with an integrated a piezoelectric component. The project coordinator, Matthias Fahland (Fraunhofer FEP) also participated as speaker at the LOPEC Conference, showcasing the project’s results.

Project TINKER

The TINKER project, which targets developing miniaturised RADAR and LiDAR sensors using novel manufacturing techniques, was also lucky enough to be presented to exhibitors from all over the world, research and technology organizations and everyone involved within this rapidly evolving industry. Given this year’s theme of Mobility, the focus on sensor packages for autonomous cars was particularly fitting. The project coordinator Dr. Leo Schranzhofer from PROFACTOR GmbH presented at the Technical poster session on 23^rd March, while the partner Notion Systems GmbH exhibited their products and technologies, along with their work in TINKER.

Project NanoQI

NanoQI project on the other hand, focuses on characterisation technologies, and several project partners also participated in this event, ensuring that their work, technologies and innovations, as well as the project itself could be presented to leading players in the field.

The SmartEEs Association officially launches, opening its doors to companies, including Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and research institutions to support the production and adoption of Flexible and Wearable Electronics (FWE) technology.

For a first glance at our technology offer, please visit the SmartEEs Association website, where you can also contact our front office . You can also have a look at the extensive SmartEEs2 marketplace, which is fully integrated into the Association’s offerings. Further, to stay up-to-date on all our activities and news from the FWE ecosystem, be sure to follow the new Association on LinkedIn @smartees-fwea and Twitter @SmarteesF.

Read the Press Release HERE!

On the 8th of May, just in time for the International Women’s Day, the European Commission launched the call for application for the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2022. With this prize, the EU intends to celebrate women entrepreneurs behind game-changing innovations, raise awareness of the need for more women innovators and create role models for women and girls everywhere.

Women who are ordinary residents in an EU Member State or a country associated to Horizon Europe are eligible, if they are the founder or co-founder of an active innovative company registered at least two years ago. The Commission wishes to award women who have created the largest impact on the EU innovation ecosystem by transforming ideas into new and advanced products and services to benefit people and planet, and has therefore chosen 3 key criteria:

• Breakthrough innovation –applicants should demonstrate what makes their product or service unique, in relation to other existing solution
• Impact – applicants should describe how their innovation offers significant benefits for people and/or planet, and how the product or service addresses a specific societal need or challenge
• Inspiration –applicants should explain how they personally played a pivotal role in the success of their company, and have the power to lead and inspire other women and girls

Overall, 6 prizes in 2 categories will be awarded:

• Women Innovators: 3 prizes of 100 000€ each
• Rising Innovators (women under 35): 3 prizes of 50 000€ each

Deadline for submission is the 18 August 2022, results will be announced in November / December. Up to 20 highest-ranked applications in each category will be invited to a hearing with the jury.

For more information on the criteria and application click HERE.

Are you passionate about Energy & Sustainability and Deep Tech topics? Is admin work not bothering you? Are you a team player? Do you wish to be part of international team? Do you want to learn and gain new experiences? If you answered YES, then we might be looking for you!

Job overview

To reinforce our team, AMIRES (Czech Republic) is opening positions for Project Managers of European R&D&I projects in Energy & Sustainability and Deep Tech domain. The chosen candidates will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of H2020 / HE projects and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals.

Main activities and responsibilities

In project administration and management:

• overall responsibility for the complete management of the project in close cooperation with the technical project coordinator;
• daily communication with international project partners;
• project progress monitoring;
• preparation and processing of technical and financial reports;
• maintenance and update of project web page;
• organisation of teleconferences / project meetings / workshops / conferences;
• community management.

In project proposals preparation:

• monitoring of suitable European R&D&I funding schemes;
• proposals structuring, commenting;
• collection of information from partners, processing of written inputs and background documents;
• business analytical activities;
• responsibility for the complete preparation and writing of respective parts of the proposals.

Experience and skills

• Master or doctoral degree (technical field is an advantage);
• experience with project administration, management or projects proposal writing (EU projects or H2020 projects are an advantage);
• fluent in English (both verbally and in written), French or German is an advantage;
• very good computer literacy and skills, professional user of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook);
• strong communication (both oral and written in formal and informal situations), presentation and organisational skills;
• target oriented;
• responsibility, flexibility, ability to work both in team and independently;
• ability to work in multinational environment;
• willingness to travel;
• driving licence;
• knowledge of European R&D&I landscape is an advantage (H2020, HE, Structural Funds etc.).

We offer

• opportunity of self-realization in a small growing company with international focus;
• cooperation on excellent European collaborative R&D&I projects;
• further education and professional development;
• job location in Prague, the Czech Republic;
• expected to start work in spring 2022.

To apply for this position, please send your CV and motivation letter (both in English) to bajarova@amires.eu till March 30^th 2022. Only candidates that will proceed to the next round of the job competition will be contacted by March 31^st 2022.

Are you passionate about Energy & Sustainability topics? Is admin work not bothering you? Are you a team player? Do you wish to be part of international team? Do you want to learn and gain new experiences? If you answered YES, then we might be looking for you!

We are opening position of Project Manager of European R&D&I projects in Energy & sustainability domain:

Job overview

The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of H2020 / HE projects and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals.

Main activities and responsibilities

In project administration and management:

• overall responsibility for the complete management of the project in close cooperation with the technical project coordinator;
• daily communication with international project partners;
• project progress monitoring;
• preparation and processing of technical and financial reports;
• maintenance and update of project web page;
• organisation of teleconferences / project meetings / workshops / conferences;
• community management.

In project proposals preparation:

• monitoring of suitable European R&D&I funding schemes;
• proposals structuring, commenting;
• collection of information from partners, processing of written inputs and background documents;
• business analytical activities;
• responsibility for the complete preparation and writing of respective parts of the proposals.

Experience and skills

• Master or doctoral degree (technical field is an advantage);
• experience with project administration, management or projects proposal writing (EU projects or H2020 projects are an advantage);
• fluent in English (both verbally and in written), French or German is an advantage;
• very good computer literacy and skills, professional user of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook);
• strong communication (both oral and written in formal and informal situations), presentation and organisational skills;
• target oriented;
• responsibility, flexibility, ability to work both in team and independently;
• ability to work in multinational environment;
• willingness to travel;
• driving licence;
• knowledge of European R&D&I landscape is an advantage (H2020, HE, Structural Funds etc.).

We offer

• opportunity of self-realization in a small growing company with international focus;
• cooperation on excellent European collaborative R&D&I projects;
• further education and professional development;
• job location in Prague, the Czech Republic;
• expected to start work in spring 2022.

To apply for this position, please send your CV and motivation letter (both in English) to bajarova@amires.eu till March 18^th 2022. Only candidates that will proceed to the next round of the job competition will be contacted by March 21^st 2022.

In WP3, the initial concepts about the heat pump and its integration into SHIP200 are being investigated. Also, evaluations of different heat pump concepts, component, and system TRL level and cost have been performed.

Furthermore, Modelica was used for detailed investigation of both design and off-design operational performance and stability in order to assess operability and integrability of the heat pump.

This allowed for cost and technical estimations from rig vendors, who should modify their designs and products to adapt them for higher pressure ratings, using, among others, new sealing technologies.

An initial of test of the rig prior to modifications was conducted in early November, and the rig was connected to a steam process.

We are happy to announce that the OASIS Catalogue of Services has been turned into an online digital Marketplace using the Ecosystem Management Platform by AMIRES!

This online marketplace allows everyone to browse through the services of OASIS in an interactive manner using filters that make it easier to find the right service. The tool also allows for the customers to directly enquire about the services they are interested in. This Marketplace is a lively environment which will be kept updated with new/adapted services continuously.

This Marketplace tool is the one-stop-shop to find services related to the introduction of nanoparticles and nanointermediates in composite and aluminium materials via innovative production technologies. It also encompasses associated services like design, modelling, simulation, characterization, and also business support services to aid the market adoption of new solutions developed. The ultimate goal is introducing innovative products which are lightweight, smart and have improved mechanical, thermal or electrical properties.

The Marketplace can be found HERE.

ABIMI (AMIRES, The Business Innovation Management Institute) leads the helpdesk for companies to participate in the open calls for demo cases on MedPhab pilot line. The first round of evaluations resulted in three companies which were successfully selected. 220K Euros from EU- MedPhab budget will be allocated for these demonstrator cases. These cases require technologies on biosensors, microfluidics and microscopy and spectroscopy for drug development and diagnostics applications. These companies are located in 3 different European countries! Agreements between the companies and MedPhab partners are ongoing, and the cases are expected to start during February.

If you are interested to receive high quality services in photonics technologies from MedPhab partners for development of your photonics-based medical devices demonstrators, participate in the open calls, contact our helpdesk@medphab.eu  or visit MedPhab’s website. 

We are excited to welcome our new team member Kristin Saar who joined AMIRES as a Project Manager in February 2022.  After graduating from a bachelor’s programme in Politics and Government at University of Tartu, Kristin obtained her master’s degree in European Affairs at Sciences Po Paris where she specialised in Social Policy. She developed a thorough understanding of EU policies while working at the EU Directorate of the Government Office of Estonia, Ministry of the Interior and Permanent Representation of Estonia to the EU.

Kristin has wide-ranging experience in the field of health and pharmaceuticals. Working at the Health Division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), she co-authored a report on patient safety governance. Prior to joining AMIRES, she was advising global pharmaceutical companies in a public affairs consultancy in Brussels and a regulatory affairs consultancy in Prague.

In her free time Kristin enjoys biking, skiing, and going to the theatre.

In AMIRES, Kristin is involved in proposals and projects in Health & Biotech Programme.

The European Commission adopted the 2022 work programme of the European Innovation Council. It opens funding opportunities worth over €1.7 billion in 2022 for innovators to improve and create new markets.

It will also focus on innovation in:

• Quantum computing
• New generation batteries
• Gene therapy.

Launched in March 2021 as a major novelty of the Horizon Europe programme, the EIC has a total budget of over €10 billion between 2021 and 2027.

The 2022 work programme of the EIC has several new elements, simplifying the application process and contributing to EU policies such as:

• A new EIC Scale-Up 100 initiatives (with having already supported over 2600 SMEs and start-ups in the past since 2018, the aim is to identify 100 promising deep tech EU companies that have the potential to become “unicorns”)
• Equity investments above €15 million
• Stronger support to women innovators

To read full article, visit European Innovation Council newsroom.

Chip Scale Review, one of the world’s leading semiconductor journals, has published our article dedicated to the progress in the TINKER project over the last eighteen months. You can find our article in the January/February issue which is available to download here:

READ CHIP SCALE REVIEW JAN/FERB 2022

The article “Shrinking RADAR and LiDAR sensor packages – an introduction to TINKER” was written in cooperation with the coordinator Dr. Leo Schranzhofer (Head of Functional Surfaces and Nanostructures, Profactor GmbH.) and consortium partners Dr. Martin Eibelhuber (Deputy Head of Business Development, EV Group, Austria) and Martina Chopart, MSc. (Project Manager, AMIRES s.r.o.). Thank you for this opportunity for collaboration.

Even though the turbulent times didn’t allow the NanoQI project partners to meet in person in Eindhoven as originally previewed, they still had the chance to reunite after six months on an online M24 Consortium Meeting on the 8^th and 9^th February 2022.

The goal of the meeting was to share their latest progress, get expert feedback from our External Advisory Board members and discuss all the operational and technical decision for the final phase of the project.

As the third year of the project approaches, we are wishing the whole consortium a great deal of success.

FRIENDSHIP project is glad to announce the publication of a scientific article on absorber coatings, written by our partner Kemijski inštitut – National Institute of Chemistry.

The paper is related to the research work on the development of the spectrally selective absorber coatings and refers to the challenges of selecting a low-cost and effective fabrication method, appropriate for industrial production, and of assessing the degradation rate and service life of these coatings.

The article, indeed, Review of the spectrally selective (CSP) absorber coatings, suitable for use in SHIP, reviews different types of mid- (100 < T < 400 °C) and high-temperature (>400 °C) absorber coatings and their fabrication methods, with an emphasis is on the solar absorptance, thermal emittance and the long-term (>10 years) thermal stability of the coatings.

Congratulations to the authors!

AMIRES is offering a ready to use solution for the creation of digital marketplaces, which are essential for building and management of communities related to technologies, markets or regions. Customizable and user friendly tool is an ideal solution for all European Digital Innovation Hubs and similar projects. Apart from a digital marketplace, the tool allows the full ecosystem management, like sharing posts, tracking samples, simplifies CRM, analytics and more.

Take a look on already implemented marketplaces in:

Flexible and wearable electronics

Photonics-based medical devices

Free-form Microoptics

Training activities in Photonics

Our colleague Jana who joined us in December 2016 and who was on the parental leave returned to strengthen our forces.

Jana stayed work active even when she was on parental leave, in AMIRES we are proud that not only we care about Gender balance, we also support  women with families, by giving them a chance to work as their parental  responsibilities allow. We believe that it is important for women to stay active during maternity or parental leave as it is beneficial for connection with the team and work but also it helps the company to build a loyal team.

Back to Jana, she finished her International Master degree in Asia Pacific Affairs at the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan and has gained excellent insights into the world of economics and politics, and strengthened her analytical skills. Jana has accumulated good management skills from project management in one of the biggest company’s Research, Innovation and Development centre focused on ODE, OEM of small appliances in Asia. Her core duties were based in international trade and the expansion of businesses in Eastern and Central Europe. Specifically, she had identified and analysed data to determine company trends and new opportunities capable of bringing expansion.

About her job in AMIRES Jana says: “Over the last year, I witnessed enormous transformation of AMIRES in terms of management structure, new employees and new projects. Even though many things have changed I felt involved, and it eased my return after parental leave. Company’s progression, impact that we are doing in our projects and people around have kept me going in AMIRES for 5 beautiful years. I am always happy when I feel that project team trust me and rely on me in management aspect of the project”.

Currently, Jana acts as a project manager of POSEIDON (NanoPhOtonic devices applying SElf-assembled colloIDs for novel ON-chip light sources) projects, Community Manager in SmartEEs2 project and is also contributing to INSPIRE (InP on SiN Photonic Integrated circuits REalized through wafer-scale micro-transfer Printing).

We are happy to welcome Jana back!

Are you a student or a young professional in architecture / building physics or engineering? Do not miss your opportunity and take part in Switch2Save Architectural Design Competition to explore the possibilities offered by lightweight switchable smart glass solutions for energy efficient glass facades buildings.

Switch2Save project proposes advanced, low-weight solutions suitable for direct integration to windows and glass facades for the control of radiation energy transfer, without any impact on the building structure, while enhancing occupants’ comfort.  

Switch2Save Architectural Design Competition aims to collect design concepts of non- residential buildings (new or renovation projects), featuring glass facades, roofs, or large window to wall areas, in any climatic context.

Switch2Save invites students and young professionals to present a design concept in which there is an optimum exploitation of the Switch2Save EC/TC smart functionalities, supported by a clear energy saving concept towards meeting the EU energy saving targets for buildings, while considering occupants’ comfort and wellbeing. In addition, the successful aesthetic integration of the IGUs will be evaluated, as well as the replication potential of the design approach.

Your’ll find more detailed information about the competition on Switch2Save website and in Switch2Save announcement.

Switch2Save competition will be launched 28/2/2022 during an on-line training event. To take part in the traning and competition launch, you can register here.

A new call for proposals to fund projects that can reform and enhance the European research and innovation system is open until 20 April 2022. The applications will be evaluated by experts selected by the European Research Executive Agency (REA).

The call makes available €60.5 million to finance projects under 15 topics that will contribute to enhance:

• Support to policy makers
• Collaboration between national and R&I programmes and ecosystem actors
• Knowledge production, circulation and uptake of R&I results
• Responsible research and innovation
• Open access to research results
• Institutional transformations of higher education institutions
• Researchers’ careers
• Ethics and integrity in research and innovation
• Science education
• Science communication
• Gender equality in research

Links to individual topics can be found HERE.

SPIE Photonics West took place on 22-27 January 2022, bringing thousands of attendees to San Francisco to connect and share the latest research and products. Photonics West is the world´s largest annual optics and photonics conference and marketplace.

SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, prepared a 3 major programme blocks:

BiOS, highlighting new research in biophotonics, biomedical optics, and applications of medical imaging; LASE, with its focus on the laser industry and applications; and OPTO, covering optoelectronics, photonic materials, and optical devices. A total of 4,000 technical presentations were included.

AMIRES has been involved in a number of leading European initiatives supporting the uptake of photonics technologies by industry. Visitors of Photonics West could learn about these projects on the dedicated booth and during Pilot Lines & Photonic Innovation Hubs Breakfast organised by European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC):

Mikko Karppinen, from VTT, presented MedPhab Pilot Line, the Europe’s First Pilot Line dedicated to Photonics-based Medical Diagnostics. MedPhab services are open to companies through their open call for demonstrator cases. Further information on MedPhab technologies and offering is available on MedPhab marketplace.
Jessica van Heck presented PHABULOuS Pilot Line, the European Pilot Line for Free-Form Micro-Optics, its one-stop shop for free-form micro-optics and the launch of the Open call for funding opportunities to implement free-form micro-optical components.
Stefano Aina spoke about JePPIX Pilot Line and how it enables fabless businesses to transition from first concept experimentation to industrial prototype and pre-production of Indium Phospide PICs with shared technology investments.  
Anke Siegmeier presented PhotonHub Europe, the European Phototonics Innovation Hub providing companies, in particular SMEs and mid-caps, with open access and guidance to a broad range of services, such as “test-before-invest”, training and upskilling, business support and networking opportunities.

Furthermore, attendees had a chance to hear about INSPIRE project within Discussion on Integrated Photonics: A Key Enabler Driving Advances in Communications, Monolithic, and Hybrid Integration Solutions: Challenges and Opportunities. Project´s coordinator, Martijn Heck, participated as a panelist in the discussion and explained the concept of INSPIRE hybrid integration approach which combines the best of InP and SiN technology through micro-transfer printing, which is a great example of integration solution.

Take a look at the pictures of the event HERE.

On 13th and 14th January, FRIENDSHIP consortium met together to discuss the project advancement in the first 18 months and to have the 1st Review Meeting. The meetings occurred online due to the Covid-19 restrictions in Europe.
On the first meeting day, the M18 meeting took place and the partners concentrated on the progress of the running Work Packages, their highlights, results, and challenges. In the end, the consortium members reached a clear vision of the directions to take and on the objectives to accomplish in the next 6 months.

During the second day, the Review meeting was held, and the discussion focused on past deviations, future risk assessment and mitigation plans. The Project Officer, Charles André Lemarie, also joined the meeting and provided valuable feedback on the behalf of the The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).

FRIENDSHIP M18 and Review meetings were characterized by a collaborative and proactive behaviour of all the participants.

Exciting six months are ahead of us. Do not miss our next publications!

We are happy to share that our team is growing!

Weronika joined our team in January 2022 as a Junior social Media Specialist for Innovation Projects.
Originally from Warsaw, Weronika graduated from the International Public Management bachelor programme at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands, where she acquired knowledge on public administration, EU affairs and policymaking. Throughout her practice-oriented studies, she had a chance to gain her academic experience in the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, as well as professional experience in the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Moscow.

In the last year of her studies, she entered the world of European projects and public funding, joining European Development Agency based in Prague, where she assisted in accessing financing and managing projects under Erasmus+ and Visegrad Fund. After graduation, she worked at EIT Urban Mobility Innovation Hub East, in which she was responsible for partner search, consortia coordination and writing applications for projects such as Horizon Europe, Interreg and Erasmus+ on behalf of the company.

In AMIRES Weronika is mainly contributiong to the preparation of Industrial Technologies 2022 conference.

We are happy to welcome Weronika to our AMIfamily and we wish her all the best!

A 3D bioprinting platform was developed in the ORGANTRANS project for the controlled assembly of live spheroids containing liver organoids into a bioconstruct. This instrument is one of the ORGANTRANS technology building blocks and it enables the mixing of hydrogel bioink precursors with live spheroids. The combination of biodegradable bioinks with a sacrificial biocompatible scaffold will promote medium perfusion and vascularization through the printed bioconstruct. To maintain the bioinks in a functional state the bioprinter comprises complex temperature controls together with integrated stirring that allows keeping live spheroids in suspension during printing. Functional validation of the technology with living spheroids is conducted in a cell biology laboratory to verify the viability of printed spheroids in the bioconstruct. Thanks to 3D bioprinting platform, the ORGANTRANS project aims at the creation of functional 3D liver tissues for the replacement of liver transplantation for end-stage liver failure patients.

QuIC is a not-for-profit association established by several major business actors – large enterprises, SMEs, investors, and startups – from across Europe. The mission is to boost the European quantum-technology industry’s competitiveness and economic growth, and bolster value creation across the continent.

As new members we are excited to share that we will proudly contribute to build this vibrant community.

We are happy to introduce our new colleague Eleonora who joined AMIRES as Project Manager in October 2021. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree in Economics at Federico II University of Naples, she joined the European Master in Business Studies, an International joint degree that is composed of 4 semesters in 4 different European countries: Italy, France, Germany, Spain.

Due to her interest in sustainability and circular economy, she took part in a one-year SVE project in a social cooperative in Belgium, where she organized debates and events on organic food consumption. Before joining AMIRES, she was Schuman Trainee at the European Parliament, Directorate for Security and Safety, where she acquired wide knowledge about EU procedures and activities.

In AMIRES, Eleonora is involved in H2020 projects ComBioTES (Compact bio-based thermal energy storage for buildings) and FRIENDSHIP (Forthcoming Research and Industry for European and National Development of SHIP).

Welcome on-board Eleonora and we wish you good luck in your new role!

ComBioTES attended the Mission Innovation Workshop in Affordable Heating & Cooling of Buildings that was held online on 30th November. The workshop was very rich and constructive and gave a very clear steer on countries and members innovation priorities on heating and cooling. The purpose of the workshop was to look back on the results of Innovation Challenge 7 (IC7, MI 1.0) and look forward to the next phase (Innovation Community, MI 2.0).

Find the recording of the workshop HERE.

Are you a creative soul who thinks out of the box? Are you not scared of a field full of innovations and technologies? If you have good communication skills as well as analytical thinking and digital design is your passion, maybe we are looking for YOU!

To our team we are happy to welcome a new member who will help us to create and run projects promotion campaigns and their content including social media and email marketing.

If you feel that this position might be a fit for you, please see the full advert and let us know by 17/12/2021.

We are looking forward to meeting you!

During November the European Innovation council (EIC) published the EIC Impact Report 2021.

This report contains the results and impact of the EIC pilot phase up to year 2020. During that period, the EIC supported 5500 start-ups and SMEs.

Moreover, in the document you will find information and data from EIC Fund, their investments which were entered in the first six month of 2021, as well as information which scientific breakthroughs as a basis for future innovations is the EIC generating.

Last but not least, the documents include new solutions for healthcare and the Green and Digital transitions.

To learn more, visit the European Innovation Council website.

The programmes are:

• Main work programme: with a budget of €1.38 billion, it will focus on the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and data spaces, quantum communication infrastructure, advanced digital skills, and the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society until the end of 2022
• First specific work programme: with a budget of €269 million until the end of 2022, focuses on funding in the area of cybersecurity
• Second specific work programme: with a budget of €329 million until the end of 2023, focuses on the set-up and operation of the network of European Digital Innovation Hubs.

The work programmes will be implemented mainly through grants and procurement procedures.

The first calls for the Digital Europe Programme were published in November, and more calls will be published in 2022.

For original article visit the News site of the EC.

The integration of the PTC and Fresnel solar fields into the whole FRIENDSHIP solution is progressing at a good pace! The BoP (Balance of Plant), P&ID (Piping and Instrumentation Diagram), and BOM (Bill of Materials) for the different types of collectors, as well as the first concepts for their sizing and energy simulations have all been precisely defined. Discussions between partners are ongoing, to adapt these elements to different user cases and select the best HTF (Heat Transfer fluid) – for nanoparticles based HTFs, please refer to this article.

One of the key aspects to enhance the output of the solar fields is to produce better coatings: a kind of material able to absorb the solar rays and transfer the heat to the HTF. Several types of absorber coatings are studied, as you can see in the picture below: ageing studies, as well as absorptivity measurements, are being made by Absolicon, CEA and NIC.

Do you belong to the ecosystem of photonics-based medical devices but you are not part of MedPhab consortium? Do your capabilities complement those from MedPhab partners? Do you have prototypes, products or services that contribute to the ecosystem and would like to share that information with the ecosystem? Register your organisation and your items here on MedPhab marketplace, part of the Community Management Platform (CMP), check the guidelines for publications HERE.

The consortium held its final event on the 25^th November, welcoming a broad public from all over Europe and further, both online and in the premises of CENER in Sangüesa (Spain). Although the day was cloudy, the participants who travelled there had a chance to behold the prototype with their own eyes and follow the operations with the receiver and the tracking system. The online participants could get an impression of what the prototype looks like through a virtual visit, available here.

The event also featured several speakers from the consortium and one guest, who all gave technical details about the different parts of the prototype and the implementation of this innovative technology in the future.

The audience, in particular the members of the External Advisory Board, thanked the whole consortium for their hard work during these past five years and expressed their interest in seeing the further developments of the concepts studied in Sangüesa. It is now time to enhance the MOSAIC technology and pave the way for its commercialization!

Soon a short, final video will be shared, that describes the project as a whole and shows how it can be essential in the energetic transition. Stay tuned for this last piece of the mosaic!

One year after the start of the project finally had first in-person meeting. On 15th and 16th November 2021, the EU-funded MARVEL project team has met at the MARVEL M12 meeting organized by the CNR SCITEC ‘Giulio Natta‘ partner in Milan, Italy. During the meeting, the achievements of the first 12 months of the project were highlighted and it was discussed the next steps and upcoming activities.

On the one hand, the first year was dedicated to the analysis of technical requirements and specifications as well as the selection of the criteria for the system demonstration. In addition to this, specific attention was given to the biological sample’s parameters, their selection, and processing. On the other hand, a strong focus was on the development of new affinity peptide ligands that outclass antibody-based isolation methods in terms of capturing efficiency, versatility, and cost-effectiveness. These achieved targets will introduce a breakthrough in current Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) isolation standards.
The next year will be mostly focused on the integration and optimization of the developed technology into several systems, leading to ground-breaking innovations for EVs deployment in cardiac repair and the non-invasive diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Follow our progress on Marvel Official Webpage.

Watch the new video about the TINKER project to learn more about the use of microelectronics and RADAR and LiDAR sensors for autonomous or self-driving cars and to discover a novel fabrication pathway that will allow further miniaturization, without compromising on accuracy, functionality or efficiency.

The consortium is delighted to invite you to the final event of MOSAIC, in the form of a visit of the prototype and a series of conferences relative to innovative CSP technologies. Given the particular sanitary conditions affecting the whole Europe, the event will be both physical, in the form of conferences and a visit of the prototype in Sangüesa, Spain, and re-transmitted online; but we can only recommend you the physical visit of the prototype, as you will have a unique chance to see it with your own eyes !

Only a few places remain for the physical version ! You can still register for the online version until the day of the event.

Registration takes place HERE.

The final stage of the MOSAIC project has started. With the construction of the solar field completed, the final tests and tune-ups on the prototype are being carried out. The receiver, controlled by a tracking system made of actuated cables and a control loop, moves over the solar field, following during the whole day the path of the sun and collecting the maximum amount of energy.

As you can see in the video below, the receiver shines brightly when in the tracking position. The HTF is circulated through the receiver by the means of two special hoses, which connect the receiver to the skid tower. Temperature probes at the entry and exit points measure the thermal gap achieved by the effect of the solar heating.

Different tests are being carried out to check and improve the accuracy of the tracking system and the global performance of this innovative thermo-solar plant system. If you wish to have more detailed explanations and a closer look on the prototype, don’t forget to REGISTER to the final event.

On 20th and 21st October 2021, the EU-funded ComBioTES team has met up online to sum up and discuss the achievements of the first 6 months of work. In fact, the project ComBioTES was started in November 2019, but due to internal problems of one of the partners, it was immediately suspended for 18 months. Now everything is back on track, first prototypes have been developed and are soon to be tested. The project’s objective is to develop a modular compact thermal energy storage (TES) solution for heating, hot tap water and cooling, fully adapted for electricity load shifting.

One year after the start of the project, the second press release is published to highlight the achievements of the first 12 months of the TINKER project. The partners have been working on developing and perfecting designs, processes and materials required for the two selected use cases.

They have been able to overcome the obstacles that the Covid-19 pandemic posed and collaborated successfully on developing equipment and tools and shared samples, technologies, and processes.

We are already anticipating the results of the upcoming years and we look forward to continuing our participation.

Read the press release HERE.

The teambuilding is an important part of every company culture. In non-professional environment people are more relaxed and opened. This time was well deserved and very much needed. And frankly speaking, we did enjoy to the fullest.

First day starting with breakfast, continuing by a hike to the brewery in Unětice where we find out how to make beer and had a chance to taste it directly from the tank.

Second day we “sweat” our ideas and brainstormed about future.

Well, no more words needed, see for yourself:

This month, project FRIENDSHIP has released three scientific works available in open-access: one article in a specialized journal and two public deliverables. The links can be found here.

The article, Choked liquid flow in nozzles: Crossover from heterogeneous to homogeneous cavitation and insensitivity to depressurization rate, compares two theoretical methodologies, based on delayed equilibrium models, to available experimental data on the critical mass flow rates of CO2 and H2O through nozzles, and achieves a very good predictability. This work is particularly useful for the development of the ejector chillers in WP4.

The two deliverables focus on a literature review of nanofluid based HTF and the integration of the heat pump to the whole SHIP200 system, respectively.

The literature review, D2.4, presents recent advances and research on nanofluids at high temperatures and the application of nanofluids to solar collectors, focusing on their enhanced thermophysical properties, but also the important challenges with the use of nanofluids, especially their stability at temperatures above 100 °C.

The D3.1 presents an evaluation of two initial heat pump concepts and integration principles for SHIP200: a high-temperature concept based on water/steam (R718) for short term heat delivery up to 200°C and a reversed Brayton heat pump concept based on CO2 (R-744) for long-term heat delivery up to 250°C. Model improvements to both concepts will be made to improve simulation accuracy and performance in the next months.

After several months of installation of the electrical and mechanical parts of the prototype, the solar field was the last major element to be assembled on the field. This phase of the works, started in September, was completed and canted by 28th October, and the prototype has finally achieved its final, impressive look:

On the following video, you can observe how some of the latest mirrors were assembled in the outer rings of the solar field.

Additional installations (grounding and sprinklers system) should be executed during the coming days, as well as the final tests of the project, concerning the tracking system and the receiver heating. If you wish to have more detailed explanations and a closer look on the prototype, don’t forget to register to the FINAL EVENT.

MARVEL project partner, CNR-ITM, is currently working on the elaboration of a highly selective membrane that will be integrated into the Tangential Flow Filtration system in order to isolate and purify the specific EVs subpopulations.

Extracellular vesicles (EV) are cell-derived membranous structures ubiquitously found in all biological fluids that act as signaling vehicles in both physiological or pathological mechanisms. Nowadays, the potential applications of these nanoparticles are attracting increasing interest in the fields of medicine, cosmetics, and nutrition. However, the manufacturing of EVs is currently challenging and is characterized by low yields. In addition to this, the main drawback of the existed size-based EV isolation methods is the presence of a large number of nanoparticles with the same size as small EVs (<200 nm) and of other contaminant molecules after the isolation process.

In the MARVEL project, one of the planned goals is to overcome these challenges through the integration of the modified with the hybrid probes membrane unit into the current Tangential Flow Filtration (TFF) system. The membrane will be modified with the specific peptide probes which are characterized by a high affinity for clinically relevant EV protein markers.  In particular, the surface of the membrane is functionalized with the highly selective hybrid probes for specific EVs subpopulations isolation. The planned further optimization of the functionalization process will lead to the development of a highly selective membrane without altering the structural properties, which are responsible for the separation process. This system will offer new opportunities in the design, rationalization, and optimization of EVs isolation and purification processes with significant reduction of contaminants.

More information about the project is available HERE.

It’s been 10 years since we entered the business of supporting inventions and innovations to make better future for all of us. During this time, we enabled many new partnerships and collaborations and had clients from across Europe, from Oulu to Catania and from Dublin to Tel Aviv. We helped fundraise several hundreds of millions € via dozens of collaborative projects.

The real success is, however, when the funded projects bring a strong advantage to European companies and organizations in the form of new products, processes, or services. This is the part when our mission usually ends, but it is profoundly engraved in our early client discussions and approaches. Our continuous aim is to keep repeating this whole process again and again for bringing the best results to Europeans, in the form of digitization and manufacturing, but going to more fundamental needs like clean air, soil and water, access to green energy or having the best possible disease detection or treatment in place for us, our families, our children.

For this mission, we are honoured to work with the most innovative organizations and companies which select us as a partner. This ecosystem brings a rich and productive environment for new concepts and project planning. The world struck by Covid-19 pandemic is showing us the fragility of the system as we know it and allows reflections about many aspects of business. We are available to assist in all forms of innovations towards economical and societal sustainability.

The most important ingredients for the success are our AMIRES colleagues. I can’t thank enough to all of them (including the past colleagues) for sharing the same passion for innovation and for better future at one side and for the support of excellent coordinators and consortia on the other.  Personally, my biggest satisfaction is brought by the AMIRES team full of curious professionals, continuously developing their leadership and empathy skills. The individuals operating in a multinational environment, supporting cutting edge technologies and European companies (irrespective of the size), will be ready to respond to challenges, which we will face in the future. Only with such a team we are now ready to take part in new actions, initiatives, events and ventures.

Congratulations AMIRES!

Rudolf

On 5^th October 2021, FlexFunction2Sustain organized a webinar to introduce the Open Call for Pilot Cases. The event was specifically aimed at informing companies about the possibilities to apply to develop and test novel nano-functionalised plastic and paper surfaces and membrane.

Prior to that there was a session with information about the FlexFunction2Sustain project and details on the Open Innovation Ecosystem – core competencies, service portfolio and application examples.

The video recording that was taken during the webinar is available here:

More information about the conditions of the Call can be found here. Further assistance is available through the Helpdesk by phone to +420 226 217 422 or by email to helpdesk@flexfunction2sustain.eu  (Monday – Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM CEST).

On the 18^th October the European Innovation council announced that the European Innovation Council Summit 21 is open for registration. Due to the Covid restriction there are only limited spots available for attending on-site in Brussels. The summit will be also available online. For registering, click here.

The event will offer an opportunity for European start-ups, innovators in SMEs, researchers, corporates as well as potential investors and venture capitalists to connect and network.

You will have the opportunity to join interactive pitching sessions and participatory workshops where you can find out more about early stage and impact investments, innovation procurement, swarm robotics and space technology.

Mariya Gabriel, the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth will officially launch the EIC Forum and announce the winners of the EIC Women Innovators Prize and the iCapital Award. Moreover, there is the opportunity to meet the winners of the European Innovation Procurement Awards.

On September 22, MedPhab completed the first EC review meeting after 18 months since the start of the project in January 2020. During this meeting, achievements and highlights of the pilot line were presented to the EC Project Officer (PO) and three external reviewers. The main topics included: the progress of the pilot line operational processes through the establishment of the Front Office, the technology maturation through the model and use cases, the technology modular mapping, launch of the open calls, dissemination to stakeholder groups, and business planning.

The pilot line has encountered some challenges mostly due to the universal obstacle of the pandemic which has delayed the on-site progress.  However, mitigation strategies have been implemented succesfully. During an open discussion, the reviewers and PO have acknowledged the efforts of the consortium and provided valuable feedback to further strengthen the establishment of MedPhab photonics pilot line dedicated for medical diagnostics.

On the 12^th October 2021 after the Summit of European Union and Ukraine, the leaders of the European Union and its Member States finalized the association of Ukraine to Horizon Europe, the EU research and innovation programme (2021-2027) and the Euratom Research and Training Programme (2021-2025). Ukrainian researchers and innovators can now participate under the same conditions as entities from EU Member States.

This alliance between the EU and Ukraine will be strengthen by the cooperation in science, research and innovation. Moreover, it will help to deliver on common priorities, such as the twin green and digital transition.

The full news is available on the European Commission NEWS site.

In September/October, FRIENDSHIP was represented by our partner CEA at two major European events: at Sustainable Places 2021, held both online and in Rome (Italy), on 30^th September; and at SolarPaces 2021, held online from 27^th September to 1^st October. The Project Coordinator, Valéry Vuillerme, highlighted the progress and results achieved during the first year of the project, while Fabio Aste and Pierre Garcia presented the latest achievements in the work packages dedicated to the absorption chillers and the heat storage respectively. Two papers, as well as a presentation, were submitted in the process. You can find more information here and here.

The European Commission has published a guidance on gender equality plan (GEP) which is a new eligibility criterion of the Horizon Europe calls for proposals with deadline of 2022 and beyond. This obligation applies to all public authorities, research organizations and higher education institutions from the Member States and the countries associated to the Framework Program. The equivalent strategy of GEP will also be accepted.

The 54-page handbook was published by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) on 27 September 2021 and is available HERE.

On the 29^th of September The European Commission launched five new EU missions.

EU missions aim to tackle big challenges in health, climate and the environment, and to achieve ambitious and inspiring goals in these areas.

Five missions will aim to deliver solutions to key global challenges by 2030:

1. Adaptation to Climate Change: support at least 150 European regions and communities to become climate resilient by 2030;
2. Cancer: working with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan to improve the lives of more than 3 million people by 2030 through prevention, cure and solutions to live longer and better;
3. Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030;
4. 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030;
5. A Soil Deal for Europe: 100 living labs and lighthouses to lead the transition towards healthy soils by 2030.

With its Communication on EU missions adopted on the end of September, the Commission is giving them the go-ahead, after the approval of the missions’ individual plans this summer.

Full article is available here.