Photonics research is one of the driving forces for innovative ecosystems where universities and industry collaborate to create new products with light technologies. Those cross-industry platforms need bright students and passionate PhDs with specific skills, from all over the globe, from Europe and from Belgium. With the Bootcamp Photonics for Bachelors we aim to make light technology more visible to students.

More than 200 persons from industry, universities and research centres celebrated the 10th anniversary of Belgian Industrial Research & Development (BiR&D) in the Palace of Academy on March 20th, 2018, in presence of His Majesty the King. Lien Smeesters, postdoc researcher at VUB B-PHOT Brussels Photonics, received the BiR&D Award in Science & Technology 2017-2018 for her work on “Improving food safety with optical screening”.

IOP Publishing has launched three high-impact open access journals. The scope of these journals will focus on research covering three aspects of the physical world that will shape the future of our planet: energy, materials and light. The titles will be led by editors-in-chief at the forefront of their respective fields. "JPhys Photonics is an innovative new open access journal for high quality research in all areas where physical sciences are applied in the field of photonics. The journal will showcase the most significant and exciting developments in photonics and photonics-enabled research."

Optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors have been the subject of extensive and relentless research efforts over the past 40 years. This technology is now applied in diverse fields such as in bio and medical, and in structural health monitoring of civil and aeronautic engineering structures, FBG sensing based research and innovation is one of B-PHOT's cornerstone activities.