MNT in Yorkshire and Humberside

Science and technology play a fundamental role in improving our standard of living, through advances in healthcare, environmental management, and directly through the creation of wealth. One important area of recent growth has been in the field of micro- and nano- technologies, areas in which polymer scientists have considerable impact.

Recognising the strategic importance of this growth area, Yorkshire Forward, the Regional Development Agency, is bringing together centres of excellence from around the region within the Micro and Nano-Technology (MNT) forum.

The Yorkshire Forward MNT Strategy has two components:

• Commercially focussed R&D (encouragement of technology push)
• Overcoming barriers to commercialisation (encouragement of market pull)

The regional has a formidable research base in micro- and nano- technology, which includes six centres of excellence:

• NanoFactory and NanoManufacturing Institute (Leeds)
• International Centre for Micro- and Nano-Moulding (Bradford)
• York-JEOL Centre for Nanofabrication and Analysis (York)
• Centre for Precision Technology (Huddersfield)
• Polymer IRC, which includes the Sheffield Polymer Centre
• Kroto Research Institute (Sheffield)

The MNT brings these together with an existing infrastructure of 14 Centres for Industrial Collaboration (CIC), which have expertise in focussing research on the needs of industry.

www.yorkshirecic.com

What the MNT forum does

The objective of the forum is to generate wealth and economic growth from new micro- and nano-technologies. To do this we:

• Steer research toward the generation of commercially relevant technologies and marketable products and services.
• Make commercial product managers aware of the opportunities that new research presents.

We are tackling these problems by improving communications between the different parties. - Raising awareness in the scientific community of specific industrial problems and goals, and offering training opportunities, conferences and other events that will bring the latest scientific advances to the attention of industry.

If you would like to know more, please visit the MNT website (linked below). If you would like advanced notice of events and training opportunities, please contact us at the Polymer Centre, or subscribe to our news feed.

www.mntforum.com