Enginering & Upscaling is any activity that is required to take a technology to Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) required for commercial products in the relevant markets.

Fragmentation in Europe is seen as a key barrier to fulfilling the potential of engineering & upscaling in industry and a barrier to the uptake of promising results. In 2014, the European Commission RTD Unit in “Advanced Materials and Nanotechnologies” therefore launched a cluster initiative with the following aims.

• Probe current activities for completeness and identify gaps.
• Help projects to support their individual and common innovation and exploitation activities.
• Identify obstacles to engineering & upscaling and pathways to overcome them.
• Support policy making.

With support from Goldbeck Consulting and Cambridge Nanomaterials Technology a survey of more than 100 projects included in the Cluster has been conducted in 2014 and a workshop was held in February 2015 in Brussels.

A discussion document of key topics for Engineering & Upscaling has now been published. It summarises findings from the Cluster survey and workshop and identifies barriers, requirements and potential actions in a number of areas to support taking research outcomes to commercialisation.

• Characterisation and testing for engineering and upscaling.
• Pilot lines and manufacturing/processing facilities
• Modelling and Simulation
• Life Cycle Analysis
• Standards, Certification and Regulatory approval
• Management of the emerging product towards commercialisation
• Funding and Financing
• Brokerage and infrastructure supporting industry and academia relationship.