Posted: November 17, 2009

UK strategy for nanotechnology business development

(Nanowerk News) The UK's Technology Strategy Board has developed a nanotechnology strategy document that sets out the processes the Technology Strategy Board will use to determine how it will invest in the nanotechnology space in a way that helps UK businesses to succeed on a global scale. It is based on the fundamental premise that the technologies likely to see the most success will be those that result in developing materials and devices with new functionality that address markets driven by society’s greatest challenges.

Accordingly, the Technology Strategy Board will channel its investment into nanotechnologies that address the following three challenges:

Living with environmental change, including:

environmental sustainability, which will cover secure global water supply and address the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ agenda in all industries secure, clean and affordable energy supply, distribution and usage monitoring structures and waste streams.

Living with an ageing and growing population, including:

applying nanoscale technologies to healthcare such as drug delivery and discovery; diagnostics and imaging; disease prevention; diagnosis, treatment and management; implants; and surface cleanliness food packaging and storage.

Living in an intelligent, connected, modern world, including:

safety and security systems intelligent transport systems increased user interaction with products next-generation computing and entertainment systems.

A technology-inspired strategy focusing on three challenge areas.

To realize this strategy the Technology Strategy Board will:

invest in technologies that have strong potential to address market needs that are driven by society’s greatest challenges. focus investment in line with those of other parties (eg research councils, regional development agencies, devolved administrations and government) foster the creation of a climate for success (regulatory, public perception, responsible development) invest only in those activities that recognize the need for sustainable development.

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