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Industrial Leadership

The current Horizon Europe Pillar 2 Cluster 4 focusses on Industry with the aim to boost the EU industry’s resilience, growth and competitiveness, and to support it through the twin digital and green transitions.

EU’s past Industrial Leadership pillar aimed to accelerate the development of technologies and innovations that will underpin tomorrow's businesses and help innovative European SMEs to grow into world-leading companies. It consisted of three specific objectives:

  • Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies provides dedicated support for research, development and demonstration and, where appropriate, for standardisation and certification, on information and communications technology (ICT), nanotechnology, advanced materials, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and processing and space. Emphasis is placed on interactions and convergence across and between the different technologies and their relations to societal challenges. User needs will be considered in all these fields.
  • Access to risk finance aims to overcome deficits in the availability of debt and equity finance for R&D and innovation-driven companies and projects at all stages of development. Together with the equity instrument of the Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (COSME) it supports the development of Union-level venture capital.
  • Innovation in SMEs provides SME-tailored support to stimulate all forms of innovation in SMEs, targeting those with the potential to grow and internationalise across the single market and beyond.

 

Industrial Leadership (Current)

FlowPhotoChem (2020-2024) Heterogenous Photo(electro)catalysis in Flow using Concentrated Light: modular integrated designs for the production of useful chemicals. To promote a low-carbon future, Europe needs to develop novel multifunctional photo(electro)catalytic materials integrated into practical and scalable reactors to maintain its technological leadership in chemical manufacturing. With this in mind, the EU-funded FlowPhotoChem project aims to develop and model an integrated modular system with improved energy efficiency and negative CO2 emissions. @flowphotochem Pau Farris (University of Galway)

ASINA (2020-2024) Anticipating Safety Issues at the Design Stage of NAno Product Development. The EU-funded ASINA project will study the production value chains of two representative categories of nano-enabled products: coatings in environmental nanotechnology and nano-encapsulating systems in cosmetic. Tofail Syed (UL)

TBMED (2019-2023) A testing bed for the development of high-risk medical devices. The EU-funded TBMED project aims to support med-tech companies in the development of high-risk medical devices by reducing their time to market for the European sector. @TBMED_EU Abhay Pandit (University of Galway)

TABLA (2020-2023) Development and Commercialisation of Transbronchial Lung Ablation to Treat Lung Cancer. Scientists of the EU-funded TABLA project have developed a pioneering, minimally invasive device that can destroy the targeted tumour of lung cancer. Martin O’Halloran (University of Galway)

 

Industrial Leadership (Completed)

STARSTEM (2018-2022) NanoSTARs imaging for STEM cell therapy for arthritic joints. STARSTEM addressed technology gaps to enable imaging of human stem cells at clinically relevant depths. STARSTEM used novel dual plasmonic gold nanostars (nanostars)-enhanced multi-modal imaging to detect stem cell engraftment and tissue repair, and thus their activity and efficacy as a therapy. Mary Murphy (University of Galway)

M3DLoC (2018-2022) Additive Manufacturing of 3D Microfluidic MEMS for Lab-on-a-Chip applications MEDLOC employed multi-material 3D printing technologies for the large-scale fabrication of microfluidic MEMS for lab-on-a-chip and sensing applications. Tofail Syed (UL)

Oyster (2017-2022) Open characterisation and modelling environment to drive innovation in advanced nanoarchitectured and bio-inspired hard/soft interfaces. OYSTER used contact mechanics to bridge adhesion data at multiple length scales and link interfacial adhesion to physicochemical properties. OYSTER took existing nanoscale characterisation technologies towards widespread utilisation in process optimisation and model validation. Tofail Syed (UL)

RespiceSME (2016-2017) Regional, National and European Support for Photonics Innovation Clusters enhancing SMEs Innovative Potential. RespiceSME reinforced the innovative capacity of Europe’s photonics SMEs, clusters and national platforms by stimulating increased collaborations in and beyond photonics. Gerard O’Connor (University of Galway) @RespiceSME

DRIVE (2015-2019) Diabetes Reversing Implants with enhanced Viability and long-term Efficacy. The DRIVE consortium developed bio-interactive hydrogels (β-Gel) and on-demand drug release systems to deliver islets in a protective macrocapsule (β-Shell) to the peritoneum with targeted deposition using a specialised injection catheter (β-Cath). Eoin O'Cearbhaill (UCD)

NanoPilot (2015-2019) A Pilot Plant for the Production of Polymer based Nanopharmaceuticals in Compliance with GMP Abhay Pandit (University of Galway)

Other (Completed)

Atlantic KET Med (AKM) brought new, high tech, pilot production capacity to the EU Atlantic Area in support of SMEs and Start-ups using the Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) to produce Next Generation medical devices. AKM offers direct support to companies to enhance their: Innovation management, Value Chain Analysis, Tech specific education, research access, and much more. 

The Celtic Advanced Life Science Innovation Network (CALIN) was a 4 year Ireland-Wales INTERREG project that supported research and development programmes for small and medium-sized businesses in the life science sector. CALIN strengthened economic links and stimulated cross-border collaboration to support both economic and scientific life science development in Ireland and Wales.

 

Cross-border Healthcare Intervention Trials In Ireland Network (CHITIN) was a unique cross-border partnership between the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland and the Health Research Board in the Republic of Ireland, to develop infrastructure and deliver Healthcare Intervention Trials (HITs). The HITs help prevent and cure illness and promote improved health and wellbeing in NI, RoI and Irish cross-border areas.

The Interreg project Codex4SMEs (Companion diagnostics expedited for small and medium-sized businesses) project planned to improve healthcare by enhanced adoption of Personalized Medicine in North-West Europe by establishing a network supporting SMEs along the value chain of Companion diagnostics (Cdx) development. Cdx are an indispensable tool for optimum application of Personalized Medicine: they allow tests to determine the molecular causes of a disease before treatment has started.

The aim of the CPM was to enhance the regional research capability while serving as a magnet for regional and FDI industry to create innovative products and new optimised care pathway tools in priority disease areas for patients and commercial benefit. The five Research Clusters used the methods and technologies from personalised medicine and applied them to heart disease, emergency surgery, acute kidney injury, unscheduled care in diabetes and diagnostic accuracy in dementia.

NanoGSkin was a transversal research project that combined regenerative medicine technologies with nanomedicine products, in a transnational collaboration of public research groups academia, clinical/public health research sector and private companies, from 4 different countries (Spain, France, Italy and Ireland), by joining together tissue engineering, nanotechnology, biotechnology and industrial production.  NanoGSkin project aimed to develop an innovative skin substitute that will overcome two of the major drawbacks of severe skin wounds: the urgent need of an effective skin implant in life-threatening situations and avoid/counteract usual bacterial infections.

HUGE aimed to address the necessity for assessing the hydrogen renewable energy chain from production through storage, transport and on to the end-user in the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) region. Many communities in the NPA are challenged by low economic diversity, resulting from their peripheral locations, dispersed demography and lack of critical mass. Simultaneously those remote, peripheral locations, have some of the best renewable energy resources in the world. HUGE aimed to build up capacity in communities to exploit the abundance of natural resources to their full potential by identifying viable technical processes for small scale operation, assessing feasible technical processes, and creating an operational, hydrogen utilisation business (HUB) model for communities to implement.

Clinicians, scientists, prominent academic centres, businesses, and the world’s largest pharmaceutical and medical industries worked together to develop a revolutionary sensor system to monitor gait in daily life. Mobility is considered the ‘sixth vital sign’ of health, with poor gait such as walking slowly being associated with greater risk of disease, cognitive decline, risk of falls, and even earlier death. The Mobilise-D project developed digital technology, including body-worn sensors, to monitor mobilityand validate digital mobility outcomes to predict clinical endpoints in multiple sclerosis, hip fracture recovery, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

nAngioDerm developed nanostructured ion‐release platforms and devices that promote the in situ regeneration of damaged skin without the need of cells or growth factors. nAngioDerm’s innovative approach was based on the controlled release of bioactive ions from biodegradable polymeric nanocarriers, which were developed using a nano‐precipitation deposition and layer‐by‐layer coating technique that facilitates reepithelisation, and therefore, wound healing.