Controlling fine-scale surface texture is a new frontier for polymer injection moulding. The requested functionalities may be connected with visual or haptic aspects for consumer goods, or with more technical ones such as wetting, adhesive or frictional properties. The biomedical field by itself encompasses a very wide potential of applications for such technologies, with stringent technical specifications on mass-produced consumables. Our choice in TopoInjection is to work on injectable drug delivery devices, to focus on a specific industrial application – yet the results should be widely applicable. Such a system must be able to deliver active biological substances with a high precision, must meet strict requirements on tribological properties, watertightness, chemical stability, biocompatibility, and must be compatible with mass production. A preliminary study of the tribological behaviour of the contact between an elastomer (piston) and a rough surface (body) in a syringe suggested which textures should be ideal for polymer surfaces. The next step is now to be able to manufacture surfaces with a reproducible texture throughout the required scale range (100 nm – 100 µm) on polyolefin pieces produced in large series. The aim of the project is to develop a polymer injection moulding process giving the required textures thanks to a combination of four sets of parameters: 1) the mould surface texture, 2) the mould surface chemistry, 3) the physical and chemical properties of the injected polymer, 4) the injection moulding process parameters. To reach this goal, TopoInjection shall focus on the following keypoints: • develop a new mould surface texturation process, using femtosecond Laser beams; • develop experimental and numerical tools to understand the polymer melt flow at the microscale, together with the evolution of the surface upon unmoulding; • disclose the interactions between the mould surface chemistry, modified by PVD hard coatings, the polymer physico- chemistry and the interface behaviour. This deductive approach will probably not yield all the necessary elements for the solution of the problem. It will therefore be completed by a more inductive, empirical approach based on trials on an instrumented injection moulding press. The results from the deductive approach will be integrated continuously to orient real-size tests. This ambitious project gathers three academic laboratories (LTDS, LaHC, CEMEF-ARMINES), an engineering school (ITECH) and two industrial partners (HEF, Becton Dickinson, HEYRMOULES). Most have both internationally recognised expertise in the scientific fields of interest and a long experience of collaborative projects

A growing desire for continuous data collection, real time information and connectivity has resulted in increased demand for electronic functionalities that are fully integrated in everyday objects. Consumer electronics, healthcare, wearable electronics, IoT and smart packaging are examples of market segments that follow this trend. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the state of the art to create electronic functions; however, this technology creates an ever increasing strain on the environment because recycling and/or dismantling of the PCB can hardly be done. A radical sustainability improvement requires disruptive electronics manufacturing processes, technologies and materials. Printed electronics are more environmentally friendly than the traditional PCB, due to their additive character (printing instead of etching), the absence of chemical etching materials, low energy demanding process conditions and possibility for recovery or re-use of substrates and (metallic) inks. Thereto, in ECOTRON, flexible, organic & printed electronics are advanced through a multidisciplinary approach involving biobased materials, innovative (print) processes, and device and module dismantling technologies. Furthermore, recycling technologies and standards will be developed that are eventually integrated in a process design for a printed electronics recycling plant. Simultaneously, the lifetime of printed electronics is improved for larger implementation of printed electronics into everyday products. ECOTRON will create use-case demonstrators in existing state-of-the-art electronics products in consumer electronics, smart packaging, healthcare and wearable electronics market segments to demonstrate the potential environmental enhancements.

Background Health systems face a time of unprecedented change, with spiraling costs, increasing cultural disparity in access to healthcare and research, and an infrastructure that is decades old. Today, telehealth is a realistic alternative making care and research more accessible and personalised with less burden to better support the most vulnerable and under-served in our society. The ability to test and monitor for illnesses using Patient Centric micro-Sampling (PCmS) is at the centre of this reform. Aim and main objectives This project is designed to build upon existing pilots and knowledge, then collaborate cross-sectorially to co-create and test the logistics, infrastructure and tools required to make PCmS a core healthcare tool and an acceptable alternative to venous blood-draw across Europe. This project aligns with many IHI’s objectives focusing on cross-sectorial collaboration, emphasizing patient and end-user- centric co-design of outputs, harmonised regulatory and data generation approaches enhancing the potential of digital innovations in healthcare, while aiming to reduce the environmental footprint during the project and in final outputs to ensure that the expected long-term impact is a reachable reality that will deliver significant benefit to the community and address unmet public health needs at scale. To achieve our objectives, we bring together a broad group of required expertise, know-how and end-users (i.e., public and patients) to form a public-private-partnership specifically equipped to tackle this challenge. This collaborative approach where the relevant stakeholders such as healthcare professionals, regulatory agencies and patients are involved and integrated to deliver solutions and innovation across healthcare systems and ensure the best chances for success and long-term positive impact from this project. Key deliverables include: 1) An optimized, tested and validated ‘Gold Standard’ infrastructure and workflow for PCmS across Europe as a proven and reliable alternative to venipuncture 2) Harmonised and clear regulatory and HTA pathways, standards and acceptability, measures and cost-benefit models across Europe 3) Documented evidence to draw a citable ‘line in the sand’ for future research to support decisions to integrate PCmS into decentralised trials and care pathways 4) Stakeholder engagement and patient involvement models and research on preferences and acceptability for PCmS 5) Foundation for future: Enable access to the developed PCmS scientific findings, tools and assessment measures for rapid uptake and integration of PCmS approaches into decentralised clinical studies and healthcare Expected impact: - Patient-centric microsampling becomes an accepted alternative to the current standard of care venipuncture and the data gathered can be leveraged in healthcare planning. - Lowered patient burden and lowered barrier to access in situations where blood samples need to be collected, whether as part of diagnosis, care plan, health monitoring etc. - A solution to leverage high amounts of data gathered from increased testing can be explored already in this project so that it can pave the way for future research that can improve health outcomes.