MateriNex - Nexus for Sustainable Materials Research in Flanders

Commissioned by VLAIO and the Flemish government's Department of Economy, Science and Innovation, MateriNex facilitates and manages sustainable materials research in Flanders by stimulating cooperation between industrial and academic stakeholders. The aim is to strengthen the materials research innovation ecosystem and ensure its excellence. MateriNex offers Flemish companies active in materials research support for their high-risk long-term research.

Three innovation themes

In consultation with industrial and academic stakeholders, 3 innovation themes were selected for the launch of MateriNex. These innovation themes fit within both the EU research agenda, and the Flemish policy priorities. For each of these innovation themes, there is a roadmap that will provide the framework to elaborate and assess project proposals. Each roadmap contains a limited number of application domains and a number of common 'transversal' challenges in terms of digitalisation and 'safe and sustainable by design' (which includes circularity). 

The innovation themes and corresponding roadmaps with application domains are:

MateriNex as facilitator

MateriNex will assume a facilitating role mainly in terms of project genesis and dissemination of results. To this end, MateriNex has earmarked project funds at the Fund for Innovation and Entrepreneurship for cSBO and ICON projects, including feasibility studies. As materials research is often complementary with respect to application-oriented research, cooperation with the spearhead clusters is an obvious option.  

For broad dissemination, MateriNex will cooperate with various stakeholder organisations, including the collective centres and the spearhead clusters. Regular consultations will take place with academia. Ideas for innovations will be jointly proposed to the stakeholder group.  

News

Expert Forum on Deep-Sea Mining: A Call for Interdisciplinary Dialogue

On June 16, MateriNex and SIM² KU Leuven convened an expert forum that brought together 30 experts to explore the complex landscape of de

Discover the key takeaways of What’s Next MateriNex 2025

What's Next MateriNex held on 27 May 2025 was a resounding success attracting 177 registrations, a 15% increase over last year’s launch event. Participants rated this year’s event a 4.3 out of 5.

Successful 10.2024 Call and Preparations for Call 10.2025

We are pleased to announce that call 10.2024 was a success, with three pre-applications for ICONs (one for each innovation topic) and seven cSBOs.

Contact

Do you have a question or would you like more information on MateriNex? Contact us at %20info [at] materinex.be (info[at]materinex[dot]be)
 

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