|
University of Oulu and Japan in Strategic Nanotech Cooperation |
|
|
|
By Sharat Khungar
|
|
Monday, 17 March 2008 |
Oulu University’s national nanotech initiative FinNano is rapidly advancing on the international scene. Its record-size delegation was highly visible at Nanotech 2008, the world's largest nanotechnology exhibition, in Tokyo.
Several cooperation agreements were established during the event. One of the most important was the extension of co-operation between NOF Corporation, a consortium of Finnish industrial companies, and the University of Oulu. The cooperation is partly funded by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
"This co-operation will enable world-leading research and further breakthroughs in wireless telecommunications components for mobile devices," says Professor Heli Jantunen from Oulu University. "Our team is excited to see their research move to real products."
"Whilst having world-leading electronics companies and cutting edge university research, Finland has few companies with NOF's depth of materials expertise. This cooperation will soon enable Finnish companies to launch some truly innovative solutions," says Markku Lämsä, Programme Manager, Tekes."Cooperation with Tekes has been very fruitful. The Finnish innovation environment and its funding instruments provide an excellent base for Japanese enterprises to partner with the Finnish technology sector, and to develop innovative applications of Japanese materials," remarked Yoshihiko Tsujimoto, of Marubeni Chemix Corporation.
"New composite materials developed by a joint program with TEKES and NOF Corporation could help to decrease signal loss in transmissions and enable high-speed telecommunication. This great progress will create a new field of telecommunications," adds Toyohisa Kobayashi of NOF Corporation
In Finland, industrial applications for nanotechnology and functional materials are important focus areas of the country's national innovation policy. Tekes has two large technology programmes in this field, which allocate a total of 300 million euros of public and private funding, and which run until 2013. The programmes are coordinated for Tekes by Spinverse, an emerging technology commercialisation company.
|
