Manufacturing with light

The EPSRC invites participants for its manufacturing with light call. This aims to encourage adventurous research ideas to explore how to generate, collect, manipulate, control and transmit light to transform and shape the manufacturing industry.

Research ideas should have the potential to revolutionise production processes or develop new and profound technological applications, where a consideration of the pathway to manufacture is necessary.

The proposed research should endeavour to bring the physics, materials, engineering and manufacturing research communities closer together and to support the device development community. Some examples of innovative areas that fall within the scope of the call are:

  • non-traditional uses of light in manufacturing processes or technologies;
  • developing new sources of light that are applicable to manufacturing;
  • manufacturing with light outside traditional spectral range;
  • innovative interactions between materials and light;
  • novel metrology and inspection concepts that exploit the properties and characteristics of light;
  • manufacturing with photons;
  • new manufacturing technology for production of devices;
  • manufacturing applications of quantum physics or quantum devices;
  • quantum physics or laser science for new manufacturing processes;
  • new applications that arise from wavelength-tuning of light sources, for example, biological and medical applications.

Higher education institutions and some research council institutes and independent research organisations are eligible to apply.

The budget is up to £3 million. Grants should not exceed £300,000 and a duration of 18 months.

Closing date 24 Jul 13

For further information go to http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/2013/Pages/manufacturingwithlight.aspx

 

RAEng Enterprise Fellowships Call for applications announced

Royal Academy of Engineering logo

The Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship scheme is now open for applications.

Enterprise Fellowships provide funding and support to entrepreneurial engineering researchers, working at a UK University, to enable them to develop the commercial potential of their research. The aim of Enterprise Fellowships is to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to commercialise technology based business ideas from academic institutions into spin out companies. Enterprise Fellowships provide up to £85,000 seed funding and salary support for 12 months. In addition to the funding, training is provided to give each Enterprise Fellow the tools, contacts and confidence to transform their idea into a successful business project or venture. Business mentors (drawn mainly from The Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship) are allocated to each Enterprise Fellow to provide additional support and advice for the duration of the Enterprise Fellowship as well as access to business angels and venture capital networks.

The closing date for applications is Monday 9 September 2013.

For further information on how to apply, please see the website or contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk