The Graphene Flagship Enters Core One

Why the Graphene Flagship?

The world’s premier research initiative devoted to graphene is Europe’s Graphene Flagship: a visionary, science-driven, academic-industrial partnership which addresses grand scientific and technological challenges related to graphene and related layered materials and hybrid systems.

The vision of the Graphene Flagship is long term, bringing together scientists and engineers from across most European countries and academic disciplines, all of whom share a unifying goal, and an ambitious roadmap on how to achieve it. Underpinning the Graphene Flagship is a focus on a disruptive technology set to have a massive impact on human society.

Graphene Flagship – Partnership and Growth

Following three years of preparation and a one year pilot, the Graphene Flagship began life in October 2013 with ramp up phase that started with 76 academic and industrial partners in 17 countries. This finished at the end of March 2016 with 152 partners in 23 countries, one third being industrial partners.

Moving forward into the first two year Core Project of the Horizon 2020 Phase, the Flagship grows its network of associate members, and appoints several partnering projects directly funded both by the EU and by the member states.

The Graphene Flagship has a planned budget of €1bn over 10 years, half coming from the European Commission, and the remainder from other sources. With the end of the €54m ramp-up phase, we now begin, under the Horizon 2020 programme, the first core phase with pledged EC funding of €45m per year.

Graphene Flagship Organisation

For the ramp up phase the Graphene Flagship was divided into 16 work packages, 11 of which were devoted to specific science and technology themes, and the remaining five to project management, technology transfer and dissemination. Coordinating the project is a team based at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. The Director of the Graphene Flagship is nanomaterials physicist, Professor Jari Kinaret.

In the Core One phase the number of work packages is increased to 20, with the addition of work-packages on Energy Generation, Functional Foams and Coatings, Biomedical Applications and Wafer Scale System Integration. The work packages are grouped into four divisions to enhance collaborations between different work packages. There will also be a fifth division housing the partnering projects.

The governance of the Flagship is strengthened to match the project’s large size. The operative management is handled by the Director and a Management Panel which is chaired by the Science and Technology Officer, Prof. Andrea C. Ferrari from the University of Cambridge, and includes the Flagship Director, the Head of Innovation (Dr Kari Hjelt) and the five Division Heads. Strategic decisions are taken by the Executive Board which includes the members of the management panel and ten members elected by the General Assembly of all 150 partners.