Open Innovation Photonics Pilot for North-West Europe

OIP4NWE "Open Innovation Photonics Pilot for North-West Europe"

The Interreg NWE-Project “OIP4NWE” aims at establishing an open access pilot line for the development, processing and testing of “Protonic integrates Circuits” (PICs). Integrated photonics is the emerging technology where the manipulation of light takes place on a chip, making the components an order of magnitude cheaper, smaller and more energy-efficient compared to today’s solutions. By providing these services to SMEs across Europe, the project reduces barriers and strengthens the competitiveness and innovativeness of European SME sustainably on the global markets.

Open-access facilities are of a laboratory nature and inadequate for manufacturing PICs with cost-efficiency, speed and reliable quality. The equipment for PIC manufacturing is of an innovative, specialized nature that cannot be obtained from a single country. As application grows, NWE needs to stay ahead. Therefore, intense collaboration between innovation stakeholders at transnational level is an important goal of the project.

The Project (total budget of 13.9m€) is funded by the Interreg North-West Europe Programme (8.3m€ ERDF funding), which fosters transnational cooperation to make North-West Europe a key economic player and an attractive place to work and live, with high levels of innovation, sustainability and cohesion. VUB B-PHOT has also received co-financing from VLAIO (Hermes) for this project (60k€).

More information : https://www.nweurope.eu/projects/project-search/oip4nwe-open-innovation-photonics-pilot-for-nwe/