Graphene Flagship strengthens industrial base with new strategic advisors and leadership team
At the start of its second year of operation, new partners join the Strategic Advisory Council and Executive Board, strengthening the industrial base of Europe’s Graphene Flagship.
In October 2014, the Graphene Flagship held its second General Assembly. As well as celebrating a successful first year of operation, representatives of the flagship gathered in Munich elected new members to the Strategic Advisory Council and Executive Board.
The Strategic Advisory Council of the Graphene Flagship – the world’s premier research and development initiative devoted to graphene and related two-dimensional materials – advises the flagship on scientific and technological research focus, intellectual property management, and collaborations with related research programmes. Its members also act as worldwide ambassadors for the flagship. Council chairman is Nobel laureate Professor Sir Andre Geim of the University of Manchester.
Two members have joined the advisory council: Dr Silvia Lazcano, responsible for Airbus research and development in Spain, and Dr Josef Wünsch, a senior vice-president at BASF. They will continue the excellent work done by Dr Gareth Williams and Professor Francisco Guinea.
Acknowledging the work done by the two outgoing council members, Sir Andre thanks Francisco Guinea and Gareth Williams for their valuable contributions. He then welcomes Drs Lazcano and Wünsch:
“Silvia and Josef represent two leading European industries, Airbus and BASF, and I look forward to working with them. A council with four members from industry, and five from academia, now covers all the key areas of graphene science and technology, and can provide the flagship with valuable advice on how to reach its ambitious goal of converting academic excellence to industrial strengths and societal impacts.”
The General Assembly also elected to the Executive Board four members-at-large.
Re-elected to the executive are Dr Ruud Balkenende, principal scientist at Philips Research Laboratories; Dr Annick Loiseau, director of research at Onera, the French national aerospace research centre; and Dr Wlodzimierz Strupiński of the Institute of Electronic Materials Technology in Warsaw. Newly elected to the boski of the Institute of Electronic Materials Technology in Warsaw. Newly elected to the board is Dr Thomas Reiss, head of the Competence Center Emerging Technologies at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe.
Professor Andrea Ferrari, director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre, has been re-elected as chairman of the Executive Board of the Graphene Flagship.