SPARKLE · Training Europe's Future Photonics Research Leaders
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-06-01 → 2025-12-31
- EU contribution
- €1,986,120
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-COFUND
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
SPARKLE - Training Europe's Future Photonics Research Leaders
Sparkle is training 27 fellows to become future research leaders in Photonics. Each fellow will gain combined skills in scientific excellence, product development and manufacturing, in order to equip them to compete at the highest international levels and will ensure that Ireland and Europe remains of the forefront in photonics technology development and exploitation. This includes rapidly emerging disruptive technologies and market opportunities, for example AR/VR that needs higher resolution and energy efficient displays, autonomous vehicles that require photonics sensors to ‘see’, guided surgical instruments that utilise light to identify cancerous versus non-cancerous tissue, all part of an industry that is growing twice as fast as the global GDP and expected to reach $780.4 billion by 2023. On the programme each fellow has a comprehensive training plan, tailored to the career path they wish to pursue. For individuals interested in an academic career, their training includes the identification and submission to funding opportunities to enable them initiate their own research programme upon completion of the fellowship. For fellows focused on a career in industry, their training is focused on translational skills, such as fabrication and commercialisation. All fellows will be introduced to IPIC’s wide network of industry partners to build their networks, find those that best match their ambitions and explore potential collaborations for the future. Sparkle aims to: • Strengthen and raise the excellence and impact of Europe’s photonics research and manufacturing activities. • Address the expanding skills shortage in the field of photonics across Europe, specifically at experienced researcher level. • Drive the advancement of the Athena Swan Charter, good practice in recruitment, promote equality, diversity and inclusion in STEM, and increase female participation levels. • Provide an opportunity for industry to shape the training programme and support Ireland and Europe’s growing photonics SMEs by providing them with highly skilled trainees. Sparkle has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 847652 and from Science Foundation Ireland.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Photonics impacts our everyday lives, from the screens that drive our mobile phones, to the fibre optic based communications network that underpins the modern internet, to light based diagnostics systems that identify diseases. It also represents an enormous worldwide sector that is growing twice as fast as the global GDP and expected to reach €615 billion in 2020. Europe is at the heart of this industry with a market that has grown by over 62% over the last 10 years, investing about €10 billion per year in innovation through its 5,000 photonics companies that directly employ over 300,000 with a global market share of 15.5%, second only to China. SPARKLE is an innovative photonics focused intersectoral training, career development and mobility fellowship programme that will be open to experienced researchers of any nationality, resident anywhere in the world, seeking a prestigious career development path in the field of photonics research and innovation. These future leaders with combined skills in scientific excellence, product develop and manufacturing, will be equipped to compete at the highest levels and will ensure that Europe secures a significant proportion of the projected 10,000 new jobs per year that will be created by the photonics industry. The SPARKLE programme will offer 27 two-year fellowships.Objectives: 1. An advanced training programme in a cutting-edge research environment to train the future cohort of world leaders in the field of photonics, highly employable both in academia and industry.2. Strengthen and raise the excellence and impact of Europe’s photonics research and manufacturing activities, and ensure that Europe continues to compete with the US and China through the transition of leading edge science into market leading products.3. Address the expanding skills shortage in the field of photonics across Europe, specifically at experienced researcher level.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK - NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK · CorkCoordinatorIreland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union