Third Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholders' Meeting
The goal of the Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholdersâ?? Meetings is to identify issues and propose recommendations that can promote the growth and competitiveness of the European industry in Organic and Large Area Electronics.
The consolidation of the European leading role in the area of organic and large area electronics would benefit from the identification of key challenges in the field, as well as the formulation of recommendations to contribute to its development. With a view to achieving these objectives, the First Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholdersâ?? Meeting was organised in May 2007, followed by the Second Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholdersâ?? Meeting in October 2007.
In the First Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholdersâ?? Meeting, three working groups were created to work on the three critical challenges identified in this domain:
- Working group1, focussed on strengthening the cooperation among players, IPR issues on innovation, etc
- Working group 2, concentrated on market issues (technology roadmaps, users-suppliers clubs, etc)
- Working group 3, covering funding initiatives (creation of start-ups, "death valley" overcome, best practices and lessons learned)
The Third Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholdersâ?? Meeting
The Third Edition of the Organic and Large Area Electronics Stakeholdersâ?? Meeting was held in Brussels on 18 November 2008.
More than 70 attendees, coming from both industry and academia, participated in this event opened by the Director INFSO G Thierry Van der Pyl, who emphasised in his welcome speech the increasing relevance of this promising field â??which has been predicted a market that could reach the size of the silicon one within two decades-. In addition, the role that these Stakeholdersâ?? Meetings can play in increasing the European innovation and competitiveness in this emerging field was highlighted.
"Europe â?? s leadership in ICT research and innovation in the next decade" and "International Cooperation" in this area were addressed by Michael Arentoft and Jean Yves Roger, respectively. Following these presentations, the chairmen of the three OLAE working groups (Dr. Herman Schoo â?? WG1-, Dr. Klaus Hecker â?? WG2- and Dr. Harri Kopola and Mr. Ed van den Kieboom â?? WG3- ) reported on their main activities.
Furthermore, the first results of the EC FP7 funded project PolyMap were presented, giving a first overview of the situation in terms of national and regional funding in the domain of organic and large area electronics in Europe. Moreover, the OPERA project, which has set up a task force, released their vision paper for the area, which outlines the opportunities for Europe in this domain as well as makes recommendations on how to further strengthen Europeâ??s position.
The PolyNet project, a EC FP7 funded NoE, presented an overview of their research activities, which are implemented through the setup of research cooperation platforms aiming at overcoming R&D fragmentation in Europe.
Additionally, the activities of the European Observatory on Organic Electronics(EOOE),carried out within the PolyNet project, were introduced by Dr. Guilles Horowitz. Education and training activities in organic and large area electronics are also covered, by the Knowledge Platform within PolyNet and the CSA PRODI .
Conclusions
The industry in the field of organic and large area electronics is still quite fragmented in several areas, with the research efforts being dispersed into several objectives covered by various national research programmes: chemistry, materials, Microsystems, photonics, energy, photovoltaics, etc.
One major outcome of this Stakeholdersâ?? Meeting was the need for coordination among the national and regional funding agencies supporting the development of this domain.
Coordinated funding initiatives would help to avoid fragmentation and duplication of efforts at European level and to create a European critical mass. Furthermore, the interest of the Member States in the creation of a European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) should be analysed.
Additionally, it was considered to be particularly relevant for the OLAE community to further structure this domain with a view to define a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), which would describe R&D priorities in this domain for the next 5-15 years. An active participation of industry in this initiative was also found to be crucial.
For further details on this event please consult the website