European study - NANO ROAD SME Development of Technology Roadmaps in Nanomaterial Sciences and Industrial Adaptation to Small and Medium sized Enterprises

摘要

The project NanoRoadSME is a European funded project. It is a pilot initiative to facilitate the integration of new research results of nanomaterials in small and medium sized companies (SMEs) using technology roadmaps. This approach including SMEs is new. Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum with its European partners has performed a study on more than 380 European SMEs in order to identify the success factors and the barriers for companies active in the field of nanomaterials. The results of this study and the methodology used for the adaptation of roadmaps to SME will be presented. The main success factors for companies already working with nanomaterials are: 1) material properties (78 %), 2) quality improvement (47 %), 3) cooperation with other companies (37 %), and 4) cooperation with R&D organisations (33 %). The four most important barriers for the application of nanomaterials by SMEs in their industrial branches are: 1) Production process technology (41 %), 2) price/performance ratio (37 %), 3) information about research results (33 %), and 4) market volume (18 %).