Objectives
- To strengthen research on nanostructured soft functional materials, the rheology of complex materials, and biopolymers;
- To strengthen cooperation between academia and industry and to stimulate knowledge transfer;
- To increase the output of well-educated researchers with experience in soft condensed matter;
- To strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation between physicists, chemists and biologists in the field of soft condensed matter.
Background, relevance and implementation
Research in soft condensed matter is important for a large number of industries including oil and petrochemicals, consumer products, coatings (for example paint), electronics, biotechnology, and environmental technology. Therefore, FOM and the Chemical Sciences Board of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (GB-CW) have initiated a research programme on soft condensed matter in cooperation with Dutch industries. The programme is also sponsored by the General Board of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Netherlands Ministries for Economic Affairs (EZ) and for Education, Culture and Science (OCW), via NWO.
The programme has three main research themes:
I. Nanostructured soft functional materials,
II. Rheology of complex materials,
III. Biopolymers.
There are two main activities within the programme:
- Establishment of new research groups,
- Research projects.
Remarks
The total budget of the Softlink programme is 8.5 million euro, borne by NWO (CW 0.9 million euro, FOM 0.9 million euro and NWO 1.1 million euro), government (EZ 2.3 million euro and OCW 1.4 million euro), universities (0.2 million euro) and industry (Shell, AKZO, DSM, Unilever research institutes and others contribute in total 1.8 million euro). |
