Information on Partners

University of Lapland (ULAP) is located at the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi, and is the northernmost University in the EU. It was founded in 1979 and has four faculties and three multidisciplinary research institutes. The University has 5,000 under- and postgraduate students and 6,400 students in adult education. Faculty of Art and Design is one of the four faculties, design being one of the strategic spearheads of the university. The University of Lapland also focuses on Arctic and Northern research, approached from the perspectives of people, society and the environment, as well as art, design and media. The University has been awarded the national-level responsibility to promote expertise on Sámi law and Sámirelated social scientific research. The headquarters of the EU Arctic Information Centre Initiative, a network of 19 leading Arctic research and outreach institutions from EU Members States and EEA countries, are currently located at the University’s Arctic Centre.

Aalborg University (AAU) was established in 1974 and is mainly located mainly in Aalborg, Denmark with additional campuses in Aalborg, Esbjerg and Copenhagen. By today, Aalborg University is the fifth largest university in Denmark in terms of number of enrolled students. Currently, Aalborg University has approximately 20.506 students and 3.864 employees. Since its establishment in 1974, teaching at AAU has been following problem-based and projectoriented learning engaging students in consistent practical and theoretical challenges.

The Department of Architecture, Design, and Media Technology is a multi-campus department with branches in Aalborg, Copenhagen and Esbjerg. In Aalborg, the department has all its main subjects Architecture and Urban Design, Industrial Design, and Media Technology represented whereas in Copenhagen and Esbjerg it concentrates on Media Technology with cross-over to Architecture and Learning. The department holds 140 researchers and PhD students and participates in a long range of national and international projects. It provides teaching to over 1500 students at the three branches.

The department is unique in the Danish context as it collects disciplines within architecture, design, media and technology under one roof providing the foundation for a powerful new field of knowledge and development of competence within the field of design with a human focus.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is a state owned and controlled non-profit limited liability company established by law and operating under the ownership steering of the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

VTT is an RTO whose activities are focused on three areas: Knowledge intensive products and services, Smart industry and energy systems, and Solutions for natural resources and environment. VTT is impact-driven and takes advantage from its wide multitechnological knowledge base to strengthen Finnish and European industrial competitiveness. VTT can combine different technologies, produce information, upgrade technology knowledge, and create business intelligence and value added for its stakeholders.

VTT has a staff of 2128, net turnover in 2016 was 162,6M€ and other operational incomes were 86,4M€. Over the years, VTT has gained vast experience from participation and coordination of numerous European projects including R&D Framework Programme projects and other thematic frameworks and programmes. VTT is ranked among the leading European RTOs.

Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC is one out of 69 institutes and research units of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft e. V., the largest European institution for applied research [2.1 billion euros annual research budget totaling. Of this sum, 1.9 billion euros generated through contract research. 24,500 staff (qualified scientists and engineers)]. Fraunhofer ISC has become one of the leading R&D centers on energy and resource efficiency. With a permanent staff of about 400 scientists and technicians the Institute works to develop innovative materials for today’s and tomorrow’s products. The parent institute is located in Würzburg. With its Center for High-Temperature Materials and Design HTL at Bayreuth and its Project Group for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies at Alzenau and Hanau it pools extensive knowledge and expert know-how on materials and their processing. As part of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Institute is crosslinked with its sister institutes and a number of other R&D institutions in and outside Europe. It is involved in a multitude of joint projects on national and international scale.

As parent institute to quite a number of different entities, the Fraunhofer ISC is privileged to combine first-rate expertise in materials science with long-standing experience in materials processing, application and analysis. With a clear focus on resource and energy efficiency, the institute puts great emphasis on the use of regrowing and economically friendly raw materials, on the substitution of critical materials and on smart and sustainable processing techniques.

In addition to contract R&D, Fraunhofer ISC can provide analytical services up into production, perform characterization tasks, optimize processes, design customized devices and undertake the upscaling of production and processing techniques to pilot scale.

Cardiff University is in the top tier of The UK’s research universities and is a member of the prestigious Russell Group. World-leading research is conducted across every academic school. The University is among the top 5 in the UK in 14 research areas, and the top 10 in a further 11 areas. With a >26,000 student enrolled, it is the 12th largest university in UK. Within Cardiff University, the School of Chemistry attracts over 250 students from around the world every year (180+ students to undergraduate MChem and BSc programmes, 30 students to MSc programmes and 45 to postgraduate research). With a recent investment of over £14 million, our extensive facilities enable research in all branches of core and interdisciplinary chemistry. The School is home to the recently established Cardiff Catalysis Institute (CCI), a University-supported initiative for supporting an internationally leading center of excellence for catalysis within the UK. In the REF 2014 research assessment exercise the school was ranked 9th in the UK and all of our research output was rated at least internationally recognized, with more than 95% ranked internationally excellent or world-leading. In 2012, 89% of our graduates were in employment or further study within six months of graduation, and this high proportion has continued in recent years. In 2016, the School was awarded the first prestigious Regius Professorship in Wales by Her Majesty The Queen in recognition for a long track record of exceptionally high quality research and teaching and its role in driving growth and improving productivity in the UK.

The University of Strasbourg (UNISTRA) is one of the largest universities in France, with nearly 46,000 students (including 19.5% of international students) and over 2,750 teachersresearchers. UNISTRA also offers access to 25 modern languages, multinational diplomas, jointly supervised doctorates, upholding renowned inter-national postgraduate schools and student exchange agreements. The scale of research activity at UNISTRA is substantial, involving a European Doctoral College, 10 doctoral schools and 73 research units.

The Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS) is a multidisciplinary research institute of UNISTRA, where basic and applied research is carried out on broadest topics involving chemistry at its interfaces with biology and physics.

The activity within DecoChrom involves the Nanochemistry Lab at ISIS: http://www.nanochemistry.fr/

Weproductise designs, creates and produce goods based on our belief that ecology and ethics should be integral to good design. Our team seeks out modularity, simplicity, durability and quality in all of our products. In April 2016, Weproductise was the Green Product Award (GPA) winner in the category “Office” (GPA is an annual international competition for sustainable products and services from established firms and Start-ups). Recently, in March 2017, BodyMover project from Weproductise, was selected to the acceleration program bootcamp implemented by Kickup Sports Innovation (Sports innovation hub to support the next generation of sports entrepreneurs and enthusiasts). This program is leaded (major partner) and held by Benfica (Portuguese sports club based in Lisbon (current Portuguese champions, having won three consecutive league titles).

Founded in 1959 as part of SONAE Group, Sonae Indústria quickly became one of the largest Portuguese manufacturers of wood-based panels. Headquartered in the north of Portugal, the company has undergone an expansion process through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions, and has become one of the industry leaders with business units in Europe, North America and South Africa and a wide variety of products for the furniture, construction and decoration industries aiming to improve people’s lives.

In May 2016, Sonae Indústria completed a partnership with Arauco, a company with headquarters in Chile and one of the largest producers of forest resources. As a result of this strategic partnership, Sonae Indústria holds a shareholding of 50% in Sonae Arauco.
Additionally, Sonae Indústria retained the full ownership of the wood-based panels business in North America, operated by Tafisa Canada, of the Laminates & Components business and some real estate assets in Europe. Sonae – Indústria de Revestimentos, S.A. (SIR) is part of the Laminates and Components Business.SIR created an R&D Department dedicated to HPL since May 2016.

Sonae Indústria’s laminates business goes back to 1959, the year of Sonae’s foundation. The industrial activity started with the production of high-pressure decorative laminates. Currently, Sonae Indústria has two laminates and components production facilities in Portugal, and one in Germany.

Laminates are especially designed for general use in the most demanding situations of wear and impact. They are an excellent alternative to solid wood and stone applications. The launch of the Innovus® collection in partnership with Sonae Arauco represents a unique concept under one catalogue with an updated set of decors including compacts, HPL, CPL and worktops

Ynvisible develops and markets interactive solutions for everyday printed items based on electrochromics. The company was founded in 2010 (Cartaxo, Portugal) as a spin-out from YDreams a company dedicated to the creation of state-of-the-art innovative interactivity projects, products and technologies.

Ynvisible vision is to “bring everyday objects and surfaces to life, making them more useful and enjoyable to people”. Ynvisible’s clients include both small design driven companies and globally known consumer brand companies. It’s most high profile customer cases have included a delivery of printed interactive point-of-purchase displays for L’Oréal and an interactive print ad campaign for the airline SATA.

Ynvisible’s has a highly skilled and multidisciplinary team: chemistry/materials science, electronics, product design and integration and business development. These competencies allow Ynvisible to combine end use design and technology, to deliver complete end solutions to consumer brand owners looking to apply electrochromic devices in their products. Ynvisible’s first solutions are based in part on Ynvisible’s proprietary (patented) solutions in electrochromics technology, which enable the integration of small changing graphics in combination with traditional printed items to bring graphics to life. Ynvisible is a member of the Organic Electronics Association (OE-A) and PrintoCent Industrial Cluster.

Currently YD Ynvisible S.A. operates out of Portugal, and is in the process of setting up an R&D lab and production upscaling team in Freiburg, Germany.

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (UNL) is the best-ranked Portuguese university in QS World University Ranking 50 under 50 (36th position). The Faculty of Sciences and Technology (FCT) is one of the nine units of UNL with 8000 students and 540 scientific staff members (http://www.fct.unl.pt). FCT provides the necessary scientific autonomy and research support to its researchers; in 2007-2013, participated as partner or coordinator in 69 FP7 projects, with a total funding of 21,5 M€, including 3 ERC projects; more than 2500 papers indexed in ISI WoS we published by FCT researchers in 2010-2013. FCT participates in most projects through the Association for Innovation and Development of FCT (NOVA.ID.FCT), a private non-profit organisation. NOVA.ID.FCT is an organization exclusively dedicated to the management of R&D projects of FCT-NOVA, including EU-funded projects.

FCT-NOVA hosts two research units, being one the Associated Laboratory for Green Chemistry – REQUIMTE (http://www.requimte.pt). LAQV/REQUIMTE has been classified with a score of Excellent in a recent research unit evaluation (2014) delivered by the European Science Foundation and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, and considered by the evaluation panel as an excellent multidisciplinary and highly productive research unit. It also hosts VICARTE research unit, which is a partnership between FCTNOVA and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidade de Lisboa. The research at VICARTE connects the present and the past, by developing new materials for glass and ceramics contemporary art, by studying the traditional and historical production practices and the exploration of different aesthetical concepts in art.

DEG delivers design and technology services for advanced environment.  Our businesses provide content creation, technical expertise and strategic analysis across built and digital environments. We provide specialised multidisciplinary insight into the physical and digital spaces of tomorrow, knowing that the centre of the complexity of systems and structures are the needs and dreams of individuals.

• visualization and development tools for advance design processes
• lighting solutions that understand how we perceive space and time
• responsive content that speaks to the body and the mind

All delivered by integrated skillset of a multidisciplinary team that solves complexity with simplicity.

VERTECH GROUP is an engineering company from France (SME), specialized in providing sustainable solutions to different sectors such as High-performance materials, Energy efficiency of Manufacturing Industry, etc. Vertech Group is member of the SPIRE platform, the BBI platform, the French Life Cycle Assessment Platform AVNIR, The Forum for Sustainability through Life Cycle Innovation, the Indian LCA Alliance and the Ibero American Life Cycle network. The staff of Vertech Group has over 10 years of experience on international cooperation. The company is based in Nice-France. Vertech is also present in Spain and has expansion plans to other markets besides Europe (e.g SouthAmerica). Vertech Group contributes with the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle initiative, the World Resources Forum and other relevant organizations in the field of sustainability. The main fields of the company expertise include sustainability assessments of innovative technologies and products, risks assessments, materials´ simulation and modeling.

The Company was founded in 2015 after a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo platform. Recognized as “innovative startup” by Milan Economic chamber, Thingk has been also accepted as official spin-off by Politecnico di Milano, for its innovative Development process and for its innovative mix of professional skills. Thingk is a mix of Design, Engineering and Made in Italy. Combining these skills, we create smart, cool, med-tech objects, for Internet of Things Era.

Centrum organické chemie s.r.o. is private research company, which is focusing on the R&D and technology transfer in the field of organic compounds synthesis. The main area of the application is conductive or semi-conductive materials for organic electronics, photoactive compounds and additives for functional polymeric layers.

Company activities enable to connection of the R&D activities with next industrial realization. There will be doing research of the suitable materials for printed electronic parts and their adequate printing form and subsequently optimization and up scaling of the most suitable synthetic procedures. Company is able to do small batch production and thanks to the connections on the chemical companies is able to transfer these technologies if the production volume exceeds its capacity.