ACENET

Basic Information

Description

This is an application by a consortium of nine national funding organisations, research councils and research ministries, to create an ERA-NET in applied catalysis. It will extend its work to all member states through the ACENET umbrella organisation. Applied catalysis is an interdisciplinary research field which combines high quality exciting science and engineering with a unique potential to contribute to economically and environmentally sustainable technologies.At present there is little coordination between the research programmes of EU member states, though many of them, acting individually and recognising the importance of the topic, have made catalysis a strong feature in their chemistry, bioscience, materials and engineering research programmes.The structured work programme starts with strategic vision setting, identification of the programmes most relevant with respect to innovative potential for Europe, it includes development of systems for coordination and integration of national programmatic research activities and extends to creation of new programmes and related activities in Applied Catalysis.The proposed network will not just create a pan-European approch to developing a focussed research strategy and its implementation, but through its links to end-users it will create an effective system for encouraging commercial exploitation of the output including SMEs, since it builds, on a pan-European scale, from the experience of successful national initiatives in Netherlands, Germany, and also the United Kingdom. These intitatives have combined the knowledge and experience of academics, industrial end-users, and funding bodies to create strong focussed strategic research programmes and have fostered the creation of stronger underpinning science.