VINF

The Virtual Institute of NanoFilms (VINF) is a non profit organisation registered in Belgium on March 22, 2007. Its objective is defragmentation of European research on functional thin films. It reassembles European leading experts involved in R&D on nanofilms (deposition, characterisation, industrialisation, etc).

History

Under the 6th framework program, the European community funded EXCELL network of Excellence (NoE). The initiative of setting up a NoE on Nanofilms comes from the constatation that European Research in this field is highly fragmented, leading to a lack in cost and speed efficiency to achieve new technology and new products development. As a reaction, the European Commission decided in 2005 to fund EXCELL NoE (project 5157032) to overcome this fragmentation. One of the project main objective was to set-up an independent and self-sustainable organisation to ensure integration of European R&D about nanofilms. The Original consortium made of 12 European leading institutions decided to set it up as non profit association and registered it in Belgium. Statutes and Bylaws were signed by the fouding members on March 22, 2007 by Notary Office and an official decree was published on October 25, 2007.

Mission and Vision

The final goal of VINF is to create value by offering the European scientific institutions and industrial companies the best conditions to stay at the forefront of nanofilms technological development and help them developing and keeping as much as possible the added value of this business in Europe.

Objectives

VINF is set-up to fulfil the continue Excel activities (Integration, Research and Spreading of excellence) and fill the gap between academic research and industry.

Research

Supporting research programs is mandatory to put and keep VINF at the forefront of Nanofilms development. Through the redaction of research roadmap and playing an administrative role in project accompaniment and management, VINF continues Excel Join Program of Research. VINF encourages and favours the set-up of very high quality research proposals and helps members involved to collaborate the most efficiently. In particular VINF helps partners to propose research projects that directly meet industrial needs. VINF participate directly in FP7 project "Nanoindent", leading dissemination aspects.

Integration

Building up a community focused on Nanofilms area and gathering actors of both scientific and economic worlds is one of the major objectives of VINF. Indeed, gathering experts from university laboratories, research centres and industries will provide the most favourable possible atmosphere to speed-up the development and improvement of process tools and development of next generation Nanofilms. VINF is also characterised by the equipment integration which means that a large part of member’s personal R&D tools will be available for use by other partners following a preferential scheme. This concerns nowadays 130 pieces of scientific equipment.

Spreading of Excellence

VINF actively participate in activities related to knowledge spreading. In particular VINF is concerned with the organisation of advanced research workshops, conferences and schools. All these activities allow the diffusion of member’s research results and the training of young scientist. In this later case VINF also coordinates a complete teaching program (advanced Master type) on nanofilms. Moreover, thanks to its web tools, VINF proposes e-learning modules and video seminars to spread nanofilms excellence.

Technology transfer

Speed-up of technology transfer from laboratories to industries and/or SME’s is considered as one of the main key success factor of the innovation process. Although its importance is obvious, its practice is still difficult because of difficulties to have efficient meeting between academies and industries. Also because of intellectual property issues which may slow down collaboration between both kinds of actors. VINF intend to facilitate exchanges between academies and focus its research activities on the achievement of concrete products with identified market opportunities. Knowing both side of R&D preoccupation, VINF organises specific technology transfer events providing the appropriate atmosphere for exchanges between people with a need and people with an offer.

Members

VINF is an association of institutions and people which accede to membership through yearly fees. The founding members have the status of Executive Members, meaning they have a voting right in the General Assembly. The members that will join VINF thereafter are referred as Associate Members and have basically no voting right in the General Assembly. It is however possible to upgrade associate members to executive members in some circumstances described in VINF Bylaws.

Structure

VINF is governed by a General Assembly composed of all executive members, each of them having a voting right. The General Assembly meets once a year, in March. Day to day management of the Organisation is carried out by VINF General Manager who refers to the Executive Committee. The current Executive Committee, elected in 2007 for 4 years is composed of
* President: Prof. Marie-Paule Delplancke, Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)
* Vice President: Prof. Elazar. Gutamanas, Technion (Israël)
* Treasury: Prof. Andrey Solov’yev’, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (Germany)
* Secretary: Dr. Peter Nagy, Chemical Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Science (Hungary)
* Head of Marketing and Communication : Dr Patrick Choquet, ArcelorMittal (Belgium)

External links

VINF [http://www.vinf.eu Official Website]
6th Framework Program [http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp6/index_en.cfm Official Website]