The Instituto de Nanotecnología y Materiales de Aragón, in collaboration with the Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón, leads the Complementary Plan for Advanced Materials for Technological Transformation
The Complementary R&D&I Plan for Advanced Materials for Technological Transformation is part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan created to promote research programmes in strategic areas. Specifically, this Plan derives from the agreement signed between the General State Administration and the regions of Aragon, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Valencia, Madrid and Castilla y León, and later joined by Castilla – La Mancha to develop a joint project, which will mobilise 53 million euros and aims to consolidate R&D&I activity in the area of Advanced Materials and promote synergies between research centres, technology centres and companies to accelerate innovation and technological development and contribute to job creation.
In Aragon, the plan is led by the Instituto de Nanotecnología y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), joint centre of the CSIC and the University of Zaragoza, in collaboration with the Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón (ITAINNOVA), and will involve a direct investment of 3.5 million euros. Through these two centres, the autonomous region is “excellently placed, both scientifically and geographically, to be a central node in the programme’s collaborations”, as Ramón Guirado, the regional government’s director general for Research and Innovation, emphasised at the event.
The Complementary R&D&I Plan for Advanced Materials for Technological Transformation was presented on 9 November in the Valencian town of Gandía, in the presence of the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant. The event was attended by the Director General of Research and Innovation of the Government of Aragon, Ramon Guirado, and the Vice Chancellor for Science Policy, Rosa Bolea, and the Director of INMA, Conrado Rillo, on behalf of Aragon, as well as representatives of the other Communities involved.
Guirado also highlighted the programme’s contribution to technological development and its alignment with two of Aragon’s scientific commitments, Artificial Intelligence and the aerospace industry, which have driven the candidatures of Zaragoza and Teruel as the headquarters of the future AI and Space Supervisory Agencies.
Artificial Intelligence is present, in fact, in all the scientific lines of action of the R&D&I plan: ‘Graphene and other two-dimensional materials’, where one of the expected results is the development of new theoretical tools for the modelling of 2D materials; ‘Materials for Energy’, where the aim is to obtain a modelling meta-methodology that allows multi-scale simulation in materials and devices for energy; and ‘Intelligent Materials with advanced functionalities’, in which AI techniques will optimise functionalities and guided exploration of materials.
And it is this third line, which aims to design materials that respond to external stimuli (light, magnetic fields, electric fields, etc.), which includes optimised quantum radiation detectors, which is directly imbedded in the space dream of Aragon. In fact, INMA, in collaboration with the European Space Agency and other national agencies, is already developing X-ray detectors for ESA’s future ATHENA mission, an X-ray telescope, to be launched into orbit in the next decade.
“These complementary plans are a boost to continue doing science of the highest quality, and to reinforce the commitment of public funding to science and R&D&I ecosystems,” said Guirado after signing the project, for whom these programmes “are going to be a success”. They will help us,” he said, “to transform our economic and social model so that it is more knowledge-based, with the aim of Spanish science being at the forefront and contributing to overcoming the challenges that the future holds for us.
10/11/2022
