Graphene and the Human Brain Project win EU's largest research excellence award.
The European Commission announced on 28th January 2013 the selection of two projects that will receive up to €1 billion funding over the next 10 years. Graphene and the Human Brain Project have won a pan-EU competition of the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagships which will plant the seeds for tomorrow's innovation.
Each project will involve hundreds of researchers, companies, research institutes and universities across the EU in a 10-year mission to tackle grand scientific and technological challenges, across research disciplines and national borders.
Graphene is led by Prof. Jari Kinaret, from Sweden's Chalmers University. The Flagship involves over 100 research groups, with 136 principal investigators, among which 4 Nobel laureates (Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov, Albert Fert and Klaus von Klitzing) and 20 holders of European Research Council grants.
Graphene Science and technology for ICT and beyond will exploit the properties of this revolutionary carbon-based material which could replace silicon as the wonder material of the 21st century.
The Human Brain Project involves scientists from 87 institutions from countries including, for example, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, France, Austria, the Netherlands, UK, and Poland. It is led by Prof. Henry Markram of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, founder and Director of the Brain Mind Institute.
The Human Brain Project will take a radically new approach to studying how the human brain works. By simulating a human brain in a supercomputer, the project could transform computing, neuroscience, medicine and beyond.
The winners will each receive about €54 million during the first 30 months of the Flagships from the European Commission's ICT 2013 Work programme. Follow up funding will come from the Horizon 2020 programme. The European Commission is committed to securing about 50% of the €1 billion funding from the EU research budget, with the rest of the funding coming from a number of sources, including contributions from the partners themselves, plus Member States and industry funding, as well as in-kind contributions such as infrastructures, computing resources, etc.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/programme/fet/flagship/home_en.html
