According to the final report of the High-Level Expert Group on Key Enabling Technologies photonics has with 480 billion $ by far the biggest market of all key enabling technologies in 2015. If we take a closer look on the various markets within photonics, we see that the sensor market is with 44% by far the biggest individual market (followed by the lighting market with 19%). The ERANET Cofound action PhotonicSensing focuses therefore on the strategically most important areas within the sensing domain: Safety (incl. food safety) Civil security Manufacturing/production Environmental monitoring and Medical. In the safety area the aim is to develop new photonic based sensors which allow for an easy and fast detection of various bacteria as well as to precisely, quickly and efficiently analyze the food composition. The importance of this field is emphasized by the fact that one of the three Horizon prizes of the European Commission (worth 1 million Euro) will be awarded for the development of a food scanner. In civil security a new generation of photonic sensors will help the European law enforcement forces in their fight against crime and terrorism by allowing them to detect hazardous substances earlier and more easily. In production photonic sensors help to improve the quality management and allow for a high level of automation which is necessary to be competitive to the cheap production in Asia. Another crucial area of this call will be the environmental monitoring, which would not be possible without photonic sensing (LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging, mid-infrared sensing,…). The challenge in this area is to bring the prices of the detectors down and improve their usability. The health aspects is also be covered by the BiophotonicsPlus (ERANET Plus) and therefore the focus of the ERANET Cofund Action of PhotonicSensing project will be on the sensing part making sure that the topics will be complimentary to the topics covered by the BiophotonicsPlus.

SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will bring together 18 national and regional organisations owning and / or managing major solar power research and innovation programmes throughout Europe. They will launch a co-funded and an additional joint call mobilising some 30 MEUR of public funding to support highly innovative transnational RDI projects. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will contribute to substantial cost reductions of solar power technologies, to support the economic development of the European solar power sector and to reinforce Europe’s strong position in solar power technologies. Reducing technology cost, lowering the environmental impact of power production and advancing manufacturing technologies, applications and energy system integration are essential to increasing the deployment of solar power technologies as crucial element of the Low Carbon Energy strategy set out in the Energy Package. This way, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will strongy contribute to achieve the ambitious climate change targets, to sustainable, secure, cost-efficient energy supply and to provide growth and jobs in the solar and related industry sectors providing also a solid technological and industrial base. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will focus on solar power technologies covering both photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) / solar thermal electricity (STE) according to the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan and the documents with Declaration on Strategic Targets in the context of an Initiative for Global Leadership in Photovoltaics resp. Concentrated Solar Power and their subsequent Implementation Plans being elaborated by the respective technology groups, i.e. European Technology & Innovation Platforms related Temporary Working Groups. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 follows on from the SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund (started in 2016) and SOLAR-ERA.NET project and network running from 2012 to 2016 and previous PV-ERA-NET network, taking advantage of more than thirteen years of ERA-NET experience.