The UK’s Technology Strategy Board, along with 18 other European countries, has allocated an indicative budget of €1.5M to support UK industry and associated Science & Technology organisations within MATERA+. The competition, with a total budget of €22M, will launch a call for funding which will open on the 16th March 2009.
The MATERA+ Call is for transnational, interdisciplinary, innovative R&D projects related to materials science and engineering in certain European countries and regions, including the UK. The three topics to be addressed in the 2009 Call are :-
Multi-functional Materials; Engineering Structural Material; Bio-based Materials and Bio-inspired Materials
To help build consortia and develop project ideas, the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) will be running three concurrent workshops. These are FREE to attend and will ALL take place on Tuesday 10th March 2009 at:
1. The Royal Academy of Engineering, London – Register to attend this workshop at: http://www.matuk.co.uk/matera_london.htm
2. Napier University, Edinburgh – Register to attend this workshop at: http://www.matuk.co.uk/matera_napier.htm
3. University of Wales Institute, Cardiff – Register to attend this workshop at: http://www.matuk.co.uk/matera_cardiff.htm
If you cannot attend any of these , there will also be a presentation on the MATERA+ Call at the SMART.mat Annual Event 2009 which is taking place on the 17th March 2009 at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham. Register to attend this FREE event at: http://www.matuk.co.uk/smartmat2009_reg.html
What is MATERA+?
MATERA+ is an ERA-NET+ Action focusing on material science and engineering. ERA-NET+ Actions are an initiative of the European Commission [EC] aimed at providing additional EC financial support to those national and regional programmes that pool resources to organise a joint call for proposals. MATERA+ is a follow-on to the MATERA ERA-NET, which focuses on creating a durable cooperation platform for national and regional policy makers and managers with strategic activities in material sciences and engineering. Further information, including important dates, can be found at: http://www.innovateuk.org/deliveringinnovation/internationalprogramme/matera.ashx
Who is eligible to participate?
The call is open to industry, universities and research centres. The project consortia are challenged to demonstrate the whole chain from basic research to application-oriented research. Funding is through national/regional funding programmes. Therefore applicants must verify both their eligibility and the rate of financial support with the relevant national / regional programme agency. Details of the UK eligibility criteria can be downloaded from: http://www.innovateuk.org/_assets/pdf/newsletters/uk%20eligibility%20matera+.pdf
