MATCH Materials Newsletter published

The latest newsletter of the Horizon 2020 MATCH project was published at the end of December.  The MATCH project aims to strengthen and deepen the Alliance4Materials strategy by building a broad stakeholder network.

This third issue of the newsletter has a focus on Europe’s strategy for metallurgy, profiles open R&D materials company FIMECC Ltd, explores Additive Manufacturing for Metallurgy in Austria, and the describes the production of porous copper for use in applications such as water purification amongst much more. You can download and subscribe to the MATCH newsletters here.

Metallurgy is a core activity underpinning primary metal production, processing and reuse and recycling of metallic materials. In total these activities account for 46% of total manufacturing value and some 11% of GDP in the EU. The lead newsletter article features the EU roadmap ‘Metallurgy made in and for Europe’ outlining its objectives and main recommendations.

Material objectives
One of the key objectives of MATCH is to enable improved connectivity between scientific creativity represented by academia and European enterprises focusing on market needs. The European Commission has set an ambitious goal to re-industrialise Europe and to raise industry's share of EU GDP to 20% by 2020. Innovation in cross-cutting applications of advanced materials provides an excellent opportunity for Europe to reindustrialise and secure jobs.

Another important objective of MATCH is to promote the alignment of national and European materials research policies and funding. MATCH has the goal of creating a single interactive and informative platform for the international materials research community.

The project is coordinated by Italian Centro Sviluppo Materiali and the consortium consists of 18 partners from nine countries representing six related European Technology Platforms (including SusChem) and several major European material research organisations.

Material targets
MATCH focuses on four main targets, crucial for the promotion of European sustainable development and innovation actions. These are:

• The enlargement and improvement of the Materials network at EU level
• The multidisciplinary connection of Materials to a large number of fields relevant for European growth and where concerted management actions are needed
• The integration with existing and/or promotion of new Materials networks at National and Regional levels
• The integration of EU and national and regional networks in sustainable and effectively aligned network hubs

Through the MATCH project all organisations interested in materials research in Europe will have a single reference network through which to obtain information, contacts and guidance in an efficient and transparent way. Established and well-connected material research stakeholders will be able to intensify their activities and extend their collaborative activities at European level, realising the A4M concept for the “The Materials Common House”.

The project started in January 2015 and will continue until June 2017. MATCH is funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It follows on from the previous Alliance for Materials initiative, the MatVal project, in which SusChem was also an active partner.