Project Summary- IP NANOKER:
www.nanoker-society.org
Training:
Training and education activities concurrent with the progress of IP NANOKER will be along two
major axes:
· Transfer of knowledge gained from basic research to the materials industry will allow
immediate pick-up of materials design and processing know-how and lead to a quick
innovation cycle of market-ready new materials and
· Transfer of knowledge on newly developed materials and their compounds into the
product and systems industry context will allow rapid integration of these new
technologies into new products and systems; this includes a large measure of training
and creation of skills.
Due to the project necessities concerning the partners on one hand and the wide range of
significance for potential skills and employment opportunities, the training activities of IP
NANOKER will directly be addressed towards internal and external users.
Fundamentally, there were defined two internal training processes which will warrant first a high
level of management and coordination knowledge requested because of the complex horizontal
and vertical integration of 10 workpackages and 15 subprojects, and second a vast information
and sensibilization level concerning essential issues directly related to the research process and
the exploitation of results like health, environment and gender.
One internal partner oriented training unit will specifically be designed for this IP but obviously
offers an important deliverable for other integrated projects that due to their complex project
management structure and their health related aspects are essential for the success of this IP.
Recent publications relate nanomaterials and nanotechnologies not only to health but especially
to environmental issues. The US Environment Protection Agency declared in 2003 that
"Nanotechnology research and development includes manipulation under control of the
nanoscale structures and their integration into larger material components, systems and
architectures. Little is known about the fate, transport, and transformation of nanosized materials
after they enter the environment." The training will especially be focused on the search and
evaluation of own experiences, external information exchange (with EC projects like Nanosafe,
etc.) and thereby will be the data base for further external training and dissemination.
Today, most industrialised European countries have Government supported major
nanotechnology research and development initiatives. The most active EU country in
nanotechnology is Germany at the moment, where the federal government has fostered a
number of competence centres and provided over 110 million euros funding in 2003. The French
government has also set up a similar structure where they attempt to centralise funding for micro
and nanotechnology research. Of course, the initiatives are different due to differing national
funding policies. Smaller dedicated programmes also exist in Austria, Finland and Sweden.
Germany is at the forefront with the Nanonet competence networks in which public research
institutes, industries and SMEs collaborate on relatively application oriented research topics. The
Swiss national programme TOPNano21 is similar. In the UK, the Netherlands and Flanders,
governments have been ramping up their support for nanotechnology research.
This external oriented training package is designed to open the societal mind for special
nanotechnological application results, in our case for biomaterials, optics and extreme conditions
and mircrodevices. It will study actual relevant training actions on research and non-research
level in the Europe, including all major actors, programmes, networks and companies. The IP
NANOKER High Education partners will cover training analysis especially in Belgium, Finland,
