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Nokia Receives $1.35B Grant To Develop Graphene Tech
silverpig writes "It now appears that graphene has reached a point worthy of serious, direct industrial attention. The grant money itself comes from the European Union for the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET), but the work will be done by a large non-governmental company with eyes on developing useful real-world applications. Smartphones contain many components with high potential for making use of graphene. From the article: 'Nokia is leading the electronic firms within the Graphene Flagship Consortium, which includes 73 other companies and academic institutions from a number of mediums. The Finnish handset manufacturer has received a grant of $1.35 billion to research and develop graphene for practical applications, with the European Union for the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) providing the grant itself.'"
Both the tech that comes from it, and the funding process model if it is successful. I wonder how much Nokia is going to try to solo this project vs. working with other science entities. This has the potential of showing the world either how to, or how not to, do research. It's too bad that the US and the EU can't work together in a more efficient way to develop material sciences. How much tech is being held up by the slow advances in materials development? Batteries, solar, next-gen computing, ect, ect, ect. At least someone is starting to push hard into this.
If they wanted to develop "useful real-world applications" they wouldn't have switched everything to the doomed windows phone.
Nokia is involved in a graphene research program along with 73 other companies. The research program gets 1 billion euros over 10 years. Nokia will probably only get a fraction of that money.
of the graphene money will be spent on No. 2 pencils with the "Windows Phone" logo.
No, it's "media," unless your talking about clairvoyants.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I assume that anything they learn from this research will be openly available to anyone and not encumbered with patents?
Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
Seems as though this could keep Nokia relevant. I'll be curious if Nokia becomes a hardware vendor for the other cell makers though.
this is a unusually grossly wrong submission having gotten to the /. frontpage. The gross project funding amounts to EUR 1 billion (approx. USD 1.35 billion) which is allocated to all the over 100 participant institutions, companies and groups - of which Nokia is only one. The effort is led by Chalmers University of Sweden.
Just read an interesting article today about using boron as a possible graphene alternative.
Nokia phones will remain the weapon of choice.
Why would they give that to a phone manufacturer that is about to go out of business and take all their R&D with them???
Nokia does seem like a very adapatable company, starting out with rubber gloves and condoms, then diversifying into mobile phones (a totally different field), then into materials reaseach (which is a natural progression, according the the article).
That level of flexibility doesn't strike me as particularly common.
"When we talk about graphene, we’ve reached a tipping point. We’re now looking at the beginning of a graphene revolution. Before this point in time, we figured out a way to manufacture cheap iron that led to the Industrial Revolution. Then there was silicon. Now, it’s time for graphene."
This is something that I've been looking forward to for various reasons: plenty of cheap carbon available, perhaps carbon circuitry will integrate better with biology, and I believe that electric conductivity between covalently joined atoms (as in graphene and nanotubes) is the way towards viable superconductors.
... but I can't seem to find the answer to my question in the article.
What exactly are they going to be using the graphene for? ... Your own personal space elevator?!?
Is it going to be used for the actual conductive material on circuit boards?
Is it going to be used to improve cellphone antennas?
Is it going to be used to greatly increase the structural integrity of the phone casing and/or screen?
Is it going to be used for some new smell-o-vision capabilities in future phones?!
Heat-sink? Transistors?
Karma: NaN
Now watch them waste it on Windows Phone.
On the short term, this could help shore up their smartphone business.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The papers ojn the research will be made public to all.
It will just be outsourced to Asia, where they will make their own version free of patent obligation.
Asians will undercut the Western competitors and sell it back to them, making a tidy profit from free R&D!!
When has this not happened??
It's going to take a massive reversal of current trends to change that, and I can guarantee that if and when the boot is on the other foot, Western companies will have to pay royalties in the unlikely event they're allowed (Asian countries are suckers enough) to use the technology and will not be able allowed to benefit their own people from it..
Always the same story ..everytime
It had better NOT be the beneficiaries of this largesse... the corporations can have licenses as a reward for doing the donkey work, but the patents should belong to the people whose money is being used...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The FET flagship projects, of which this is one, have a budget of up to 100 million euro per year. The amount contributed by the EU will be considerably lower, as this number includes costs borne by the project members that are not reimbursed by the EU.
According to the rules governing these kinds of EU projects, Nokia will be able to request reimbursment for up to 50% of their R&D costs in the project. The actual levels of reimbursment may be lower, depending on how the budget is allocated. The EU is actually pretty aggressive about ensuring that money is actually spent in accordance with the contract that the project members are required to sign.
But way, there's more!
The press release from the project itself states that the initial 30 months have a budget of only 54 million euro and involve 126 different research groups. We don't know yet what the project will look like after that initial phase since new participants and activities will be added through an open (i.e. competitive call). Based on my experience, the project will almost certainly use the full 1 billion euro, eventually, but there's know way to know how those funds will be allocated, yet.
Nokia's share of the budget by the end of the project? My guess would be at the very most 50 million euro over ten years (of which they about half from the EU and have to put up the rest themselves), but that is just a guess.
They started out as a tire manufacturer. Fisting gloves and condoms came later, when the Russians weren’t satisfied with drawing happy faces on tires with lipstick, and calling it their wife. ;)
Graphene
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Why Nokia ?
First of all, there are a lot of reputable research labs in Europe.
Second of all, Graphene can be used in A WIDE RANGE OF DIFFERENT FIELDS, --- from medical research to electronics to military to environmental science --- smartphone is just _one_ of the many.
Personally I think many other research labs are more deserving of the research grant than Nokia.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I thing we have a big kiss from EU to Nokia, god knows for what reason...
I hope not just to keep the company alive..
This is where the money from EU VAT taxation goes actually?
Would using graphene as a kind of laser printer toner, allow us to print out circuit boards on paper? or does it need to be in a structure, that would prevent the electrical properties of the fused dust being useful?
Sorry, 1.5 B ????, that's not a research grant, that's a payoff.
After skimming through previous comments, I feel that a number of otherwise alert and intelligent people are focusing upon the buzzwords and missing the beef in this particular burger.
Graphene has some amazing properties; it's light, thin, strong and conductive. Yay!
But what's the point of it if you have it wrapped around one of the modern batteries?
Time for a lighter, thinner, tougher battery maybe.
Hence 1b euro and 10 years R&D :)
Nokia is _the_ EU mobile device company in competition with Apple, Google, and BlackBerry.
I suspect you are not European, your worry is unfounded :) The university and companies involved are in this together. It's about fueling research, education and products in Europe. That's the goal, not just patents.
Who will get Nokia's share of this grant when they go under in a few years? I highly doubt they're going to be still solvent in five years, let alone 10.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
I can't wait to see what Nokia does with graphene. They have proven that they are willing to use new materials and manufacturing techniques in their hardware to date.