PROPHET
Postgraduate Research on Photonics as an
Enabling Technology
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Why this project?
• Semiconductor lasers research activities, recently focused on
quantum dot lasers
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We submitted several Marie Curie ITN proposals on Quantum Dots but they were never
funded.
• We decided to put forward an ambitious project on Photonics
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EU commission has identified Photonics as one of the five Key Enabling Technologies.
We decided to focus on four applications
• Telecommunications
• Life-Science (Optical Imaging)
• Environment monitoring (Gas sensing)
• Energy (Solar cells)
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PROPHET
Telecomm
Life science
Environment
Energy
Design and modelling
Growth
Tele
Fabricate
Characterise
Implement
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Choice of partners
• Industrial partners identified as essential
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They work in a well-defined area, e.g OPTOPOL sales systems for Ophthalmology
They will hire a post-doctoral researcher for two years and will host PhD students
• Academic partners
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Most of the academic partners have two PhD students working in two different areas of
research, e.g. Univ of St Andrews has a PhD student in Energy and a PhD student in life
science
Some partners work in only one area and therefore have only one PhD student
• The list of partners progressed slowly. We made sure that people
wanted to contribute to our proposal.
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Partner
Telecom
Energy
Tyndall/CIT
LPN-CNRS
Lead & student
T Univ Berlin
Student
Environment
Life science
Student
Student
Student
Post-doc
Univ Lancaster
Student
St Andrews
Lead & Student
Lead & student
Student
Nicolus Copernicus
Weierstrass
LEAD & Student
Student
Matis (Catania)
Student
Pavia
Student
Alcatel Thales
Industry: student
Optopol
Industry: post-doc
PROCAL
U2T
ST-Microlectronics
(AP)
Industry : post doc
Industry: post doc
Industry
Telecom&
Management
Paris(AP)
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Building the proposal
• In CIT/Tyndall, David Williams and I worked full time on the project.
• We assigned a workpackage leaders, e.g. LPN is the lead partner
for the workpackage: Photonics Enabling Communications
Applications
• Each workpackage developed
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1 page on Scientific background and state-of-the-art
Description of each project with location and duration of the secondments
1 page description of each workpackage
• Each partner provided half a page
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To provide a general description
The role in the project
Key competencies and facilities
Key personnel
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Proposal layout
• 1st page: description of the project
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European strategy (reference to Photonics 21 that clearly states that key challenges for the
next few years the training of qualified photonics researchers and the improvement of
research coordination and cooperation across Europe.
PROPHET aims to address this shortage
• Background and state of the art for each field (4 pages)
• Research methodology and objectives
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Description of growth and fabrication, device characterisation, theory and design, industrial
applications
• Training
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Fellows will obtain a working knowledge of the full range of skills employed in the
development of photonic devices. Development of Complementary skills: personnal,
presentation, IT, management, ethics, IP
Personnal Career Development plan.
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Proposal layout
• Description of the project
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10 lines: general description. List of placements
• Workshops, summer schools and conferences
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Workshops on
• Growth and Fabrication of Photonic Materials and Devices
• Modelling and Design for Photonics
• Industry Applications of Photonics
• Characterisation of Photonic Materials and Devices
Summer school in Corsica (3 visiting researchers)
Conference in Cork
• Implementation
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½ page per partner, visiting researcher’s profile
Workpackage description: management, telecomm, energy, environment and life science
Private sector involvement, synergy between the partners
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Proposal layout
• Recruitment strategy
• Benefit to partners, to the Europe (reference to Photonics 21)
• Impact within the scientific community
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The workshops and the conference will be open to external participants
• Impact on public-private sector collaboration
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A few tips
• Spend time to define an ambitious proposal
• Spent a lot of time at looking at the website of projects previously
funded in similar area
• Look for European documents, e.g. Photonics 21
• Careful choice of the partners: everybody says yes.
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We ask a few reliable people if they would accept to lead a work-package
No need to have a partner who will spend a month to write a 10 line project
High profile partners can be high maintenance, last minute negotiation !!!!
Some industrial partners have difficulties to hire people, e.g if the company is not doing well.
• Share the work
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We had two people working on the project in Cork
• David Williams put the proposal together
• I spent a lot of time calling people to make sure they are on-time
• Be prepared to submit your proposal several times
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PROPHET
• Leading a European Network: Postgraduate Research on Photonics
as an Enabling Technology (PROPHET)
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Photonics is a key enabling technology for a wide range of applications such as
Telecommunications, Energy, Environment and Life Science.
Need a common training to design, model, growth, fabricate, characterise and implement in
systems photonics materials and devices
• PROPHET brings together
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15 partners including 5 industrial partners to train 14 PhD students and 5 post-doctoral
researchers
The project is lead by CAPPA with a total funding of about €4M
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