In February Professor Nicole Grobert from the Department of Materials at Royce Partner, University of Oxford and Chair of EC Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, along with European colleagues, presented a ‘Materials 2030 Manifesto’ to European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel.
The EC Group for which Professor Grobert is the Chair, provides advice to the European Commission to inform policy making recommendations to improve the interaction between policy-making and scientific advice.
This ‘2030 Perspective’ discussed the importance the EU places on Advanced Materials in reaching climate neutrality and sustainability, setting out a vision for a strong European Materials ecosystem to drive the green and digital transition as well as a sustainable inclusive European society through a systemic collaboration of upstream developers, downstream users and citizens and all stakeholders in between.
The report says that working together is vital for success. Boosting interdisciplinary activities to harvest smart and coherent development of advanced materials can tremendously benefit when all forces are aligned. It notes that “historically Europe is the place of inventions and has created many of the greatest breakthroughs for humanity. Critical to research and innovation is discovery-led research as ultimately it feeds directly or indirectly into end-user applications and industry. In short, there is no applied research without fundamental research in the long-run. Hence, it is critical for Europe to create a world-wide unique ecosystem that connects discovery-led low TRL research with application-orientation and links it synergistically with industry, including small and medium sized enterprises.”
The manifesto calls for a systemic approach to develop the next generation solution-oriented advanced materials which will offer faster, scalable and efficient responses to the challenges and thus turn them into opportunities for Europe’s society, economy and environment today and in the future.
It includes a clear focus on “uniting Digital and Material capacities and competences” – with high performance computing, big data and AI set revolutionise the digital modelling, simulation and screening of materials properties, materials development and production processes. This is a theme which aligns with the Royce co-ordinated suite of Landscaping Reports detailing the specific actions that will contribute to the delivery of the “digital-first” approach to materials science.
The manifesto report concludes with a Call for Action from a number of key signatories, which includes a set of actions that embrace an “agile and inclusive governance of advanced materials at EU level” a roadmap and European “strategic agenda” for advanced materials.
Download the manifesto
