TAILORED NANOMATERIALS
The nanotechnology revolution essentially consists of the ability to control material features on the nanometer length scale. However, to see the economic impact of these new abilities, the basic science of nanotechnology, particularly in the area’s that lead to practical production of useful products, requires continuous development and improvement.
The nanomaterials work group for SIM consisted of representatives from all Flemish universities, from research institutes VITO, IMEC and Sirris, and from companies Agfa, Bekaert and Solvay.
Together they identified the areas for which Flanders can create added value and for which additional research and development will certainly be needed. The result can be consulted in the Nanomaterials Theme document which is attached below.
There is a clear link with activities on the European scale:
- Nanofutures roadmap
- Key Enabling Technologies Nanotechnologies

This is a so-called horizontal SIM research theme: the knowledge to be build up is of a more generic nature than typically required for one industrial roadmap, value chain or set of applications. Therefore a research program within this horizontal theme is called a horizontal program and its output should support the developments of several vertical research programs that are aimed towards a specific application domain.