EUSMI will provide the community of European soft-matter researchers with an open-access infrastructure as a platform to support and extend their research, covering characterization, synthesis, and modeling. Where ESMI has set the standard for the past five years, EUSMI will significantly go beyond. EUSMI will enhance the European competitiveness in soft-matter research and innovation through the integration and the extension of the scope of existing specialized infrastructures. A full suite of coherent key infrastructures and the corresponding expertise from 15 top-level institutions are combined within EUSMI, which will become accessible to a broad community of researchers operating at different levels of the value chain, including SMEs and applied research. Access is offered to infrastructures covering the full chain of functional soft-matter material research, ranging from advanced material characterization by a full suite of specialized experimental installations, including large-scale facilities, chemical synthesis of a full set of soft-matter materials, upscaling of laboratory synthesis, to modeling by high-performance supercomputing. The existing infrastructure will be continuously improved by JRA to allow users to conduct research always employing the most advanced techniques and methods.. In addition, an ambitious networking programme will ensure efficient dissemination and communication, as well as continued education of established researchers and training of an emerging generation of scientist. This approach will drive academic research and innovation in soft nanotechnology by providing a multidisciplinary set of essential research capabilities and expertise to guide users, developing the next generation of techniques and instruments to synthesize, characterize, and numerically simulate novel soft matter materials and contributing to the creation of a broad knowledge basis.

The CO-PILOT project addresses the field of nanocomposites which has witnessed remarkable progress (compound annual growth rate of 18%) in recent years with many different types of nanocomposites exhibiting radically enhanced properties for a wide range of industrial applications. The CO-PILOT project aims to develop an open access infrastructure for SMEs interested in the production of high quality (multi-)functional nanocomposites on a pilot scale. In CO-PILOT this infrastructure will be prepared for access (‘open acess’) by SME’s beyond the project. It will be able to produce typically 20 to 100 kg nanocomposite product, characterize it and validate its performance. This is sufficient to make management decisions to progress to the next step of new nanocomposite product development. CO-PILOT aims to set new standards for high-quality nanoparticle production with the assistance of in-line nanoparticle dispersion quality monitoring. CO-PILOT chooses to develop a centrifuge module to address the adequate and automated down-stream processing of the nanoparticle dispersions. CO-PILOT will test and validate the pilot line infrastructure. Based on the consultation of SME nanocomposite producers, CO-PILOT has chosen the following range of industrial nanocomposite applications : - flame and smoke inhibiting polymer materials (layered double hydroxides) - acid scavenging used as anti-corrosion and in polymer stabilisation (layered hydroxides) - heat isolating plastics (hollow/porous silica) - light-weight flame inhibiting composites (layered hydroxides combined with hollow/porous silica) - UV protective polymer coatings (zinc oxide, titanium dioxide) - high refractive index, visually transparent polymer (titanium dioxide) - low-refractive index polymer (hollow/porous silica) - anti-glare polymer coatings (hollow/porous silica) - magnetic recoverable catalyst nano-composite beads (magnetite).