NanoFabNet - International Hub for sustainable industrial-scale Nanofabrication

Project Information

NanoFabNet

Grant agreement ID: 886171

DOI

10.3030/886171

Project closed

EC signature date 14 February 2020

Start date 1 March 2020

End date 31 August 2022

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Advanced materials

Total cost

€ 2 258 943,75

EU contribution

€ 2 220 725,00

Coordinated by

ACUMENIST
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NanoFabNet (NanoFabNet - International Hub for sustainable industrial-scale Nanofabrication)

Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The NanoFabNet Project will create a strong international hub for sustainable nanofabrication, whose structure, business model, detailed strategies and action plans are designed, agreed and carried by its international stakeholders during the Project duration, in order to yield a self-sustaining collaboration platform: the NanoFabNet hub, at whose centre the registered NanoFabNet membership organisation will provide an accountable, permanent secretariat. It will be responsible for the implementation of a long-term business plan, and the provision of validation services, trainings and consultations, while collaborative and cooperative activities between actors of the wider international nanofabrication community will be fostered within the open architecture of the hub, and may be supported by membership organisation, if necessary.
The hub aims to be a one-stop-shop for all matters and concerns pertaining to sustainable nanofabrication and its successful incorporation into the complex, large-scale high-value industries by bringing together governmental and academic laboratories with large industries and SMEs, and thereby offering a coordination space for past, current and future collaborative nanofabrication projects (incl. both EU-funded projects and initiatives, as well as public-to-public partnerships (P2Ps) and public-private-partnerships (PPPs)).
The necessary consolidation of the existing innovation infrastructures with the diverse and widespread nanofabrication stakeholders is currently hampered by the manifold barriers of technologies, discipline, language, regulation and geography between the individual domains and the fragmentation within them. The NanoFabNet Project specifically addresses and aims to overcome these hurdles by taking the proposed NanoFabNet hub beyond the current state-of-the-art.

Overall Objective:
The NanoFabNet Project will establish an international hub for sustainable industrial-scale nanofabrication that stands for (a) a well-implemented, guided approach to high levels of safety and sustainability, (b) trusted technical reliability and quality, and (c) compliance with and drive of harmonisation, standardisation, and regulation requirements, amongst all of its members and along their nanofabrication value chains. The hub is envisaged to have a complex, open structure, whose elements will be developed, agreed and validated in a step-wise approach to meet the high-level objectives outlined below. The achievability of these high-level objectives is specifically supported by the consultation of a wide-range of stakeholder knowledge, views and opinions, laying the foundations for an increased identification of the stakeholders with the NanoFabNet brand they are creating, and thus deepening their feeling of ownership and responsibility. This specific methodology ultimately secures the long-term sustainability of the hub and its promotion and widening from within its stakeholder community.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Both the NanoFabNet Project and the NanoFabNet Hub were focussed on setting up a physical network, in which people could meet each other in face-to-face meetings, with a virtual backdrop in the form of a scaled-down, ‘digital twin’ of all connections, collaborations and activities that would be set up in the physical world.
When the corona pandemic broke out and physical meetings were cancelled due to the ensuing prevention measures, the NanoFabNet Project KOM and 1st NanoFabNet Development Workshop had to be re-designed as a hybrid event, and as it became clear that travel and face-to-face meetings would not be possible for a long time (if at all during the Project), the entire Project was re-designed to build a virtual network for sustainable nanofabrication, instead of the planned physical network.
A silver lining of the shift from physical to virtual meetings, however, turned out to be the much larger body of involved stakeholders (i.e. 57 attendees of the 1st NanoFabNet Development Workshop (hybrid event), and 201 attendees of the 2nd NanoFabNet Development Workshop); the resulting NanoFabNet Hub already benefits by being set up as a fully international network with a much larger number of stakeholders than would otherwise have been the case at this point in time.
As a result of the restructuring and refocussing of the NanoFabNet Project and its planned ‘digital twin’ (i.e. NanoFabNet database and online platform), the NanoFabNet Project counted more than 200 stakeholder registrations at its 2nd Development Workshop in January 2021, and has established a number of formal collaborations in the harmonisation and standardisation of terminologies and ontologies of sustainable nanofabrication, encompassing partners for the EU, the US and further afield.
The NanoFabNet Project has a strong visibility through its website (www.NanoFabNet.net) and its lively social media activity. Many stakeholders have found their way to the website and registered their interest in the Project (and the anticipated NanoFabNet Hub).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

IMPACT 1: Integrate nanoscale building blocks into complex, large scale systems that will become the basis for a new European high-value industry
PROGRESS: The ultimate achievement of the KPIs indicating IMPACT 1 will become evident through M5.1: Demonstration of the NanoFabNet Value-Add through Integration into the wider sustainable, high-tech Industries (M28).

IMPACT 2: Link and consolidate existing infrastructure, create a sustainable community of stakeholders managing information and communication within and outside the group and develop an EU wide research and innovation strategy
PROGRESS: During the first 12 project months, the NanoFabNet Project established a large list of collaborators; over 200 stakeholders were invited to the 2nd Development Workshop and registered to attend the workshop.
The NanoFabNet Project has had significant success in connecting with the European nanofabrication community and setting up collaborative activities in harmonisation and standardisation. In addition, the two US Partners are ensuring collaborations with the US NNCI.

IMPACT 3: Establish a network of existing EU funded projects and initiatives, which will solve common issues through cross-project collaboration, and will strengthen technology take-up across Europe
PROGRESS: A list of past and current projects has already been created and will be incorporated in the NanoFabNet database, with a view to foster communication, collaboration and a value-add to the projects through the formation of new collaborations. This will be supported by deliverables D3.6: NanoFabNet Implementation Roadmap for EU Project Collaboration (M16) and D3.7: NanoFabNet Implementation Roadmap for international Cooperation (M16).

IMPACT 4: Establish international cooperation in particular with the nanomanufacturing programme of USA-NSF and the NNI Signature initiative of Sustainable Nanomanufacturing
PROGRESS: The NanoFabNet has strong collaborative ties with both public and private partners in the US; the two US-based NanoFabNet Project partners VT-ARC and GTRC are providing active visibility of the NanoFabNet in the US nanotechnology community.
In October 2020, the NanoFabNet sent an 8-min movie to the US, in order to congratulate the US NNI on the National Nanotechnology Day: https://youtu.be/pranBKBgapg. In November 2020, the NanoFabNet Project sent a detailed response to the US NNI Strategy Planning consultation.

Landing page of the NanoFabNet.net public website