Funding Opportunity

Photonics call 2022 for multilateral R&D&I project proposals addressing next generation integrated photonic sensing

Opening date

14 April 2022

Deadline date

27 June 2022

Eureka
Teaser description

The participating funding bodies from the countries and regions listed below intend to fund joint research and development in the field of photonics. Applicants are expected to undertake research aiming at market-able products, services, or technologies with high market potential in the participating countries and/or Europe.

Eureka is the world’s biggest public network for international cooperation in R&D and innovation, present in over 45 countries. It is a decentralised intergovernmental organisation aiming to boost the productivity and competitiveness of industries by funding and supporting international collaborative market-driven R&D projects.

This call for projects has been launched at https://www.eurekanetwork.org/open-calls/ following Eureka’s Network projects framework based on mutual consent between participating national and regional funding bodies. It is the second joint call for projects between Eureka and Photonics21, building on the initiatives of Photonics21 Mirror Group institutional members who have implemented a series of transnational calls under the ERA-Net Cofund scheme of the EC Research Framework Programmes FP7 and Horizon2020.

2 Participating countries / funding agencies

• Austria: BMK (fund owner) / FFG (funding agency)
• Belgium-Flanders: VLAIO
• Denmark: IFD
• Finland:Business Finland
• France: BPI France
• Germany: BMBF (fund owner) / VDI TZ (funding agency)
• Ireland: Enterprise Ireland
• Poland: NCBR
• Switzerland: Innosuisse

Please note that when the terms ‘national’ or ‘country’ are used in this call document, they equally refer to and include the participating region(s).

Full description

Interested parties are invited to submit R&D&I project proposals substantially contributing to the development and the deployment of novel integrated photonic sensors or sensing techniques.

Project proposals under this call are expected to relate to at least one of the three subtopics:

1. PICs (photonic integrated circuits):
integrating photonics and electronics for novel photonic sensors and sensing systems, 3 considering packaging and connection approaches, scalability, CMOS-compatibility, and new material systems

2. QPICs (photonic quantum sensors):
combining and integrating classical and quantum optics (e. g. onto a photonic chip) to use quantum properties or quantum phenomena to perform a measurement of a physical quantity

3. Hybrid sensing:
combining two or more sensing methods – at least one of which originates from the field of photonics – to enable new sensor applications or to substantially improve existing ones The proposed R&D work should aim at future-oriented sensor technologies and systems that centrally address at least one of the following challenges:
• Climate and environmental protection, including reducing energy consumption
• Enabling novel end consumer products and accessing volume markets by means of robust, miniaturized, scalable, and sustainable photonic sensors and systems P

roposers shall clearly identify application areas and applications (preferably products) aimed at by the project. Potential application areas include – but are not at all limited to – environmental monitoring, process control, mobility (traffic and motion control), health monitoring and food surveillance.