The FRIENZ project will provide funding to assist selected New Zealand delegates to participate in a Study Group tour through Europe for approximately 9 days commencing in Europe on 15 June 2015. The task of the delegation is to promote opportunities for collaboration in research and innovation between the EU and New Zealand, strengthen existing relationships; and to stimulate new collaboration between EU and New Zealand research organisations and innovation partners.
The overall interdisciplinary theme of the tour is advanced manufacturing technologies. Manufacturing is increasingly based on globally distributed resources to make, assemble and distribute a wide range of goods. Customers are also becoming more diverse with a wider range of needs to be satisfied more rapidly and suited to their needs, including environmental, and they have greater ability to seek out information and make comparisons on alternatives. New technologies are required that allow manufacturers to flexibly respond and adapt to market needs. New Zealand has, or is establishing, a range of existing and new entities to help support researchers and manufacturers including:
- the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge whose objective is to enhance the capacity of New Zealand to use physical and engineering sciences for economic growth; this is a collaboration across a wide range of institutions actively involved in physical and engineering sciences, and the study of research and innovation practices themselves.
- four Centres of Research Excellence: (the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, hosted by the Victoria University of Wellington, The Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, hosted by the University of Otago, and the Medical Technologies CoRE hosted by the University of Auckland, and Te Punaha Matatini – The Centre for Complex Systems and Network hosted by the University of Auckland).
The tour programme will allow participants to share research and establish, renew or extend their relationships with counterparts in Europe.
Participants are expected to establish on-going relationships and collaboration with their European counterparts in the theme area. The FOF topic areas are identified below.
Potential tour destinations:
Lithuania Conference: The 19th International Conference ELECTRONICS 2015 (Palanga) 15th-17th June 2015
Germany Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU, Chemnitz
Other European Destinations:
Participants are invited to identify colloboration opportunities with their European counterparts where they can share research and establish, renew or extend their relationships in other European destinations. Consideration of other destinations may be given where the visit is considered to be complementary to the groups interests.
Representatives from the New Zealand research, university and innovation sectors can apply for travel and accommodation support up to the value of NZ$6,340 (including GST) to participate in this FRIENZ study group tour. The travel policy, requires the prudent use of public funds. This precludes premium economy or business class travel. Where travellers would like to book (or upgrade) their tickets, the FREINZ project may reimburse the traveller to the value of an economy airfare. The FRIENZ Project Officer, Michelle Wickens will assist with booking your travel arrangements.
Additional support is welcome from tour participants to supplement the funds provided by the FRIENZ budget, for example class of travel and excursions.
Eligibility criteria
The eligibility criteria for applicants are that they are either:
- A New Zealand Science Leader or Industry Leader who could benefit from linkages to potential commercialisation partners in Europe and New Zealand through which New Zealand companies and/or organisations can benefit from establishing or strengthening this relationship; or
- Are considered to be researchers/managers, in a position to develop new proposals (to Europe, Horizon 2020 and Member State programmes) to formalise knowledge sharing between Europe and New Zealand; and
- Aligned to the topics below.
Assessing Applications to select Participants
- Applications must align with the following topic(s): Factories of the Future (FoF) – topic areas 2, and 9 – 14 of the Horizons 2020 Work Programme 2014-2015 or FET -OPEN
- FoF 2 – 2014: Manufacturing processes for complex structures and geometries with efficient use of material
- FoF 9 – 2015: ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs (I4MS)
- FoF 10 – 2015: Manufacturing of custom made parts for personalised products
- FoF 11 – 2015: Flexible production systems based on integrated tools for rapid reconfiguration of machinery and robots
- FoF 12 – 2015: Industrial technologies for advanced joining and assembly processes of multi-materials
- FoF 13 – 2015: Re-use and re-manufacturing technologies and equipment for sustainable product lifecycle management
- FoF 14 – 2015: Integrated design and management of production machinery and processes
- FETOPEN-2014-2015-RIA: FET-Open - Novel ideas for radically new technologies - Research Projects
- Applications will be considered by a Selection Panel in order to ensure a representative mix.
- Preference will be given to key actors of Research or Industry who are able to demonstrate a strong bilateral involvement and potential benefit to both Europe and New Zealand.
- The FRIENZ Sectoral Contact Point (SCP) and FRIENZ Consortium partners reserve the right to nominate New Zealand science leaders to be considered for this call.
Please fill out the application form and send it to Michelle Wickens (michelle.wickens@royalsociety.org.nz), FRIENZ Project Officer, by 09:00 20 April 2015 (New Zealand time). Successful applicants will be notified by 29 April 2015.