Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BEEP (Bio-inspired and bionic materials for enhanced photosynthesis)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2020-01-01 do 2021-12-31
The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of our planet is about 12 000 times larger than the global human energy demand. However, despite huge efforts in the scientific community to harvest and efficiently exploit sunlight as a renewable and green energy source, efficient light energy harvesting remains one of the main challenges for humanity.
The scientists of this ITN are turning to the natural world for inspiration to tackle this issue. In millions of years of evolution, nature has indeed come up with ingenious solutions to build strong structures, harvest solar energy and produce iridescent colours. In the marine world, for instance, a number of marine phototrophs have evolved stunning light management strategies for efficient light harvesting and protection in their compact and highly pigmented spatial structures, and have adapted to operate over a range of habitats and different light regimes, fluctuating from high solar irradiance to shaded conditions.
By bringing together biologists, physicists, chemists and material engineers, BEEP aims to explore how these organisms could inspire us to generate new, greener photonic materials and technologies for an optimised solar energy harvesting and storage.
In synthesis, BEEP main objectives are the following:
i) To unravel the fundamental strategies of light management in marine phototrophs including macroalgae, corals with symbiotic microalgae and bacteria, as well as sea-slugs with sequestered chloroplasts,
ii) To apply such knowledge for creating novel artificial and bionic photosynthetic systems.
The scientists of this ITN are turning to the natural world for inspiration to tackle this issue. In millions of years of evolution, nature has indeed come up with ingenious solutions to build strong structures, harvest solar energy and produce iridescent colours. In the marine world, for instance, a number of marine phototrophs have evolved stunning light management strategies for efficient light harvesting and protection in their compact and highly pigmented spatial structures, and have adapted to operate over a range of habitats and different light regimes, fluctuating from high solar irradiance to shaded conditions.
By bringing together biologists, physicists, chemists and material engineers, BEEP aims to explore how these organisms could inspire us to generate new, greener photonic materials and technologies for an optimised solar energy harvesting and storage.
In synthesis, BEEP main objectives are the following:
i) To unravel the fundamental strategies of light management in marine phototrophs including macroalgae, corals with symbiotic microalgae and bacteria, as well as sea-slugs with sequestered chloroplasts,
ii) To apply such knowledge for creating novel artificial and bionic photosynthetic systems.
Work Package1: Project management:
The management team of the network consists in the network coordinator, Prof Vignolini, and the network manager, Floriana Misceo, working together at the University of Cambridge to administrate the project and to ensure its implementation as agreed with the Commission.
During this First Periodic Report, the Management and Coordination office have successfully achieved the deliveries for WP1, including but not limited to: the setting up of the BEEP website (D1), the organisation of the 1st Network Meeting, which was hosted at the University of Cambridge (D2), the completion of the Consortium Agreement (D3), the election of the Supervisory Board of the Network (D4), the Data Management Plan (D5), the organisation of the 1st Annual Meeting (D6), the reporting of the mid-term progress to the REA (D11) and the organisation of the 2nd annual meeting (D7).
Work Package 2: Recruitment
All 9 ESR positions were filled between months 1 and 9, see report D.2 for further details. We have followed the recommendations of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers in order to conduct a “transparent, impartial, and equitable” recruitment process. Despite all the delays caused by the pandemic, 8 out of 9 ESRs started the project by the end of 2020. ESR3 could only start his employment on January 2021, as the pandemic delayed the procedure to obtain his permit to work in the EU.
Unfortunately, the ESR selected by the UMIL resigned on June 2021. A new ad was posted and a new set of interviews were conducted. The recruitment committee hired a new ESR, who started on October 2021.
Our team of researchers is well balanced in terms of gender composition, with 4 out of 9 ESRs are female and 5 out of 9 are male. As for the nationalities of the researchers, 3 of them are Italian, 2 are Spanish, 2 are French, 1 is Chinese and 1 is Cuban.
Work Package 3: Research
The research work the ESRs are performing spans diverse topics, from the optical characterisations of the nanostructures of coloured seaweeds and microalgae, to the physical characterization of the phothosynthetic processess in the marine phototrophs and the development of self-sustaining bio-photoreactors.
Work Package 4: Training
The ESRs work under the supervision of distinguished scientists, thereby receiving world-class training-by-research. BEEP ITN has so far already organised 2 training workshops and is currently organising a summer school in Italy that will be held on September 2022. The training included Technology Transfer and Innovation, Patent filling, Publishing in Peer Reviewev Scientific Journals, Soft Skills including how to best manage time and projects and writing and presentation skills. The ESRs are also undertaking fruitful secondments between the research groups and the industry partners, which expose them to interdisciplinary research environments, fostering collaborative teamwork across research groups, and providing them with first-hand experience of R&D in companies.
Work Package 5: Communication, dissemination, and exploitations.
The BEEP ITN created a website and is also present in Social Media, with a Twitter and YouTube account. See links below. The students regularly share news related to the BEEP research on Twitter, they have partecipated to a number of conferences where they presented the BEEP work in the form of posters. Moreover, 3 scientific papers have been published, which acknowledge the ITN funding, and many more are being prepared. The ESRs reached out to the general public during an exhibition at Nantes in January 2022, at the "Night of the Researchers" and will be present at the "Festival della Scienza" in Italy next October 2022, one of the biggest scientific outreach events in Europe, attracting thousands of visitors every year. Our students also enthusiastically produced a few outreach videos which we published on our BEEP YouTube Channel, on our website and advertised on our Twitter account. The ESR also created a logo (attached).
The management team of the network consists in the network coordinator, Prof Vignolini, and the network manager, Floriana Misceo, working together at the University of Cambridge to administrate the project and to ensure its implementation as agreed with the Commission.
During this First Periodic Report, the Management and Coordination office have successfully achieved the deliveries for WP1, including but not limited to: the setting up of the BEEP website (D1), the organisation of the 1st Network Meeting, which was hosted at the University of Cambridge (D2), the completion of the Consortium Agreement (D3), the election of the Supervisory Board of the Network (D4), the Data Management Plan (D5), the organisation of the 1st Annual Meeting (D6), the reporting of the mid-term progress to the REA (D11) and the organisation of the 2nd annual meeting (D7).
Work Package 2: Recruitment
All 9 ESR positions were filled between months 1 and 9, see report D.2 for further details. We have followed the recommendations of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers in order to conduct a “transparent, impartial, and equitable” recruitment process. Despite all the delays caused by the pandemic, 8 out of 9 ESRs started the project by the end of 2020. ESR3 could only start his employment on January 2021, as the pandemic delayed the procedure to obtain his permit to work in the EU.
Unfortunately, the ESR selected by the UMIL resigned on June 2021. A new ad was posted and a new set of interviews were conducted. The recruitment committee hired a new ESR, who started on October 2021.
Our team of researchers is well balanced in terms of gender composition, with 4 out of 9 ESRs are female and 5 out of 9 are male. As for the nationalities of the researchers, 3 of them are Italian, 2 are Spanish, 2 are French, 1 is Chinese and 1 is Cuban.
Work Package 3: Research
The research work the ESRs are performing spans diverse topics, from the optical characterisations of the nanostructures of coloured seaweeds and microalgae, to the physical characterization of the phothosynthetic processess in the marine phototrophs and the development of self-sustaining bio-photoreactors.
Work Package 4: Training
The ESRs work under the supervision of distinguished scientists, thereby receiving world-class training-by-research. BEEP ITN has so far already organised 2 training workshops and is currently organising a summer school in Italy that will be held on September 2022. The training included Technology Transfer and Innovation, Patent filling, Publishing in Peer Reviewev Scientific Journals, Soft Skills including how to best manage time and projects and writing and presentation skills. The ESRs are also undertaking fruitful secondments between the research groups and the industry partners, which expose them to interdisciplinary research environments, fostering collaborative teamwork across research groups, and providing them with first-hand experience of R&D in companies.
Work Package 5: Communication, dissemination, and exploitations.
The BEEP ITN created a website and is also present in Social Media, with a Twitter and YouTube account. See links below. The students regularly share news related to the BEEP research on Twitter, they have partecipated to a number of conferences where they presented the BEEP work in the form of posters. Moreover, 3 scientific papers have been published, which acknowledge the ITN funding, and many more are being prepared. The ESRs reached out to the general public during an exhibition at Nantes in January 2022, at the "Night of the Researchers" and will be present at the "Festival della Scienza" in Italy next October 2022, one of the biggest scientific outreach events in Europe, attracting thousands of visitors every year. Our students also enthusiastically produced a few outreach videos which we published on our BEEP YouTube Channel, on our website and advertised on our Twitter account. The ESR also created a logo (attached).
Our interdisciplinary team of researchers combining competences in biology, physics, chemistry and engineering, is working towards the achievement of a fundamental understanding of the strategies that marine photosynthetic and phototrophs organisms put in place to maximise the amount of solar energy they are able to absorbe, store and convert.
Our students have already some preliminary and promising results which will be shared shortly, first of all by means of peer-reviewed scientific publications and then throught our website, our Twitter account, press releases and in the context of our final exhibition which we will organise during the final year of the project, in 2023.
Understanding light-management inspired by marine phototroph organisms presents a tremendous potential for the development of innovative green technologies and designs that await exploitation by the scientific community and the material producing industry.
Our students have already some preliminary and promising results which will be shared shortly, first of all by means of peer-reviewed scientific publications and then throught our website, our Twitter account, press releases and in the context of our final exhibition which we will organise during the final year of the project, in 2023.
Understanding light-management inspired by marine phototroph organisms presents a tremendous potential for the development of innovative green technologies and designs that await exploitation by the scientific community and the material producing industry.