It is also worth highlighting that the European FET Open program is a highly competitive call given that out of the 902 projects submitted only 58 (6.6%) have been funded in the whole of Europe.

Funding for these three projects exceeds 1.5 million euros, of which €747,000 corresponds to the bioUPGRADE project, in which Raúl Pérez-Jimenez is participating; €390,625 is for the INTERFAST project, in which Luis Hueso is collaborating; and €375,000 goes to the SINFONIA project, in which Luis Hueso is also participating.

The nanoGUNE researchers assert that “the SINFONIA and INTERFAST projects are enabling us to go on exploring the properties of organic materials in the field of the most competitive electronics, and to bring our basic research proposals closer to commercial devices with the help of top companies”. Likewise, the BioUPGRADE project “enables biotechnology to be used to transform natural resources into a new generation of “high-tech” biomaterials”.

SINFONIA

The main aim of the SINFONIA project (Selectively activated INFOrmation technology by hybrid Organic Interfaces), coordinated by Luis Hueso, is to develop a technology that will allow information to be stored and transported on a nanometric scale operating in the ultra-rapid THz regime, beyond current conventional processors. SINFONIA is proposing a completely new approach to information technology.

BioUPGRADE

The BioUPGRADE (Biocatalytic upgrading of natural biopolymers for reassembly as multipurpose materials) project, coordinated by Raúl Pérez-Jiménez, brings together advances in genomics, protein engineering and materials science for the purpose of transforming the principal polymers in nature into high-performance biomaterials with numerous applications, ranging from energy to medicine.

INTERFAST

The INTERFAST (Gated INTERfaces for FAST information processing) project, coordinated by Luis Hueso, will be developing a novel technology platform to control the magnetic response of a material by means of electric pulses and thus propose new forms of ultra-dense information storage.