Technology foresight

The NIA is working closely with regulators and policy makers to realise the full potential of nanotechnology and secure the full economic and societal benefits through identifying and roadmapping unique areas of potential competitive advantage using nanotechnology.

 

NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies

Introduction

The support of an ongoing advancement of nanotechnology research, development and commercialisation is central to the NIA’s role as a key-contact point between regulators and policy makers on one hand and the growing nanotechnology industries on the other; through identifying and forecasting unique areas of potential competitive advantage using nanotechnology, the NIA helps to secure the full economic and societal benefits of this exiting field of emerging technologies.

The NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies provides a purely industry-led forecast, which makes exclusive use of data obtained from the industrial members of the NIA, thereby delivering a clear outline of the industrial development path for nanotechnology and its advancement over the next 15 years into more complex nanomaterials, structures and systems. The forecast examines the existing opinion of the economic potential for nanotechnologies and provides a 2020-view of the emerging technologies’ impact.

The Structure

The NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies is based on a flexible and dynamic framework that is not constrained by a rigid process-driven approach, but that can be applied to plot widely differing technologies on the same graph and compare them. The framework thereby represents a versatile tool to meet the latest challenge faced by technology foresight exercises: the entry into the era of complex converging technologies.

During the stepwise progress of the NIA forecast exercise, the framework is gradually populated with data provided by the industrial members of the NIA. The forecast is reviewed regularly, in order to obtain an iterative identification of the industries’ long-term aspirations.

Central to the NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies is the model of progression with time and complexity; this attribute enables the simultaneous plotting of a number of different technologies, and results in an overview of wide-ranging applications. This concept is best described graphically by adopting Complexity as an industry-independent dimension plotted on the abscissa, ranging from simple materials, sometimes already in manufacture on a large scale, to highly convoluted 2D and 3D constructs, that may still reside in the laboratory. The complexity ordinate indicates an increasing level of Functionality of a given application as an indicator of its level(s) of performance.

It is important to note that functionality is not necessarily wholly determined by complexity, as an increase in the complexity of a device does not automatically result in an increase in functionality at the nanometre scale. Figure 1 illustrates the definition of the industries’ collective nanotechnology capabilities as the area under the described functionality versus complexity curve.

Figure 1 Illustration of the underlying concept of progression with time and complexity; the industries’ collective nanotechnology capabilities as the area under the described functionality versus complexity curve.

In order to facilitate the population of this chart with examples of nanotechnology-based applications, both the axes are divided into several categories, as illustrated in Figure 2. The start of both scales at the intercept of the complexity- and the functionality-axis can be envisaged as the location of a simple elementary article, such as a nanoparticle that performs a basic chemical reaction; an increase in the complexity of a device with the lowest functionality can be understood as adding multiple components to this simple particle, while its functionality remains that of a basic chemical catalyst. The next step up in complexity leaves behind the regime of multiple complexity and introduces an element of engineering to yield the category of a structured component, while the final and most evolved step of increasing complexity reaches the regime of ‘systems of systems’, which can be understood as a constructed complex of several structured components. This categorisation, of course, covers both predominantly 2D structures (e.g. the classic silicon chip) as well as 3D structures (e.g. advanced DNA chips).

Figure 2 Division of the defining dimensions into several descriptive categories; the complexity of systems increases from simple systems, over multiple and structured to constructed systems, while the system functionality increases from chemical, over physical, sensing and motive to autonomous.

It becomes evident that the dimension of complexity encompasses an element of design, which increases with growing complexity to optimise the interaction of the applied building blocks.

Similar to the stepwise increase in the complexity of systems, their growing functionality can be broken down in several different ways; the following categorisation was applied for the purpose of this technology forecast: the lowest level is that of chemical functionality, exhibited by nanometre-sized devices with purely chemical interactions, as described above; the next level accommodates interactions that are dominated by physical phenomena, such as light-emitting or absorbing nanoparticles. Further increase in functionality is characterised by the regime of systems that can respond to their environment in a simple way, based on the sensing capability introduced to a physical functionality, while a responsive interaction with the environment and adaptation to changes in external parameters can be performed by systems that are equipped with a motive capability. The final step of increasing functionality is reached by autonomous systems that can react to external stimuli without outside input or control; these systems still only have a low degree of autonomy and remain dependent on the input of external power. 

The Collection of Data

The NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies provides a pure industry-led view of the technological development path. In this aspect, it differs from most technology-based foresight exercises; it was developed exclusively with information provided by NIA members across a wide range of technologies, from materials producers to sub-system manufacturers to industrial end users, and illustrates the development routes into the future, as anticipated by the collective nanotechnology industries. The creation and collection of this company-specific information, however, is an ongoing process, so that the resulting plot represents an initial snapshot of the dynamically changing forecast; the resulting NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies will be updated annually, and it is anticipated that new aspects of nanotechnologies will be added, while others might be taken off the roadmap, or moved to a different position on the chart, according to their status of development.

The Application of Data

The NIA’s industrial members provided data on nanotechnology-enabled components and systems at various stages of research, development and commercialisation; the data was divided into five major categories:

• existing applications,
• current development (ready in 0-3 years)
• targeting 3-5 years,
• targeting 5-10 years, and
• long-term aspirations (> 10 years).

The data was colour-coded to enable easy interpretation and placed at appropriate locations in the 2-dimensional chart of nanotechnology capabilities (cf. Figure 2).

Follow this link to download the full NIA Forecast of Emerging Technologies.

Unblocking Roadmapping Congestion

by Dr Alan Smith (for the NIA)

Hardly a month goes by without another materials technology roadmap being issued, but few materials scientists are even aware that they exist, despite them being freely available. 

In a report entitled 'Roadmapping Congestion?', Dr Alan Smith clears a path through the complex maze of nanotechnology roadmaps.

For those who have not come across technology roadmapping, it is a step further on from a Foresight exercise.  The Foresight process gave a vision of what was needed in the future, generally up to 20 years ahead, but it did not provide a clear route of how to get there.  Roadmapping is aimed at filling that gap.  In essence, it is similar to a business plan that a company or university might draw up and adopt.

Some roadmaps have used a Delphi approach with questionnaires being sent out to experts in the particular field, but a better approach has been found by getting the experts together in the same room.  The experts need to be taken from all parts of the company, research and development, marketing, production, and of course it helps to have the CEO’s endorsement.  In addition, an academic input is essential nowadays to any company’s technology roadmap.  The roadmapping process can also be useful for academic departments to help them focus on where future funding is likely to be placed.

The pressures on industrialists and academics means that their time is precious, and they want something that is relatively fast and effective.  You only have to look at ‘time-to-market’ for new products to realise that product life times have been cut dramatically in the last decade.  Therefore a roadmap should not be too time consuming for the participants and should have its actions progressed as quickly as possible. 

It has been found that the best way to obtain a roadmap is to have a group of around 20 to 30 experts together for a day and take them through the roadmapping procedure, using the following steps:

There tends to be three different sorts of roadmap, the broad industry ones which involve a large number of people; technology specific ones which are more focused and involve fewer people; and finally those specific for a particular product.  The product roadmaps are usually for a particular company, and could be for a new underarm deodorant of a new breakfast cereal.  They are usually not given away free, as the others are, since they are proprietary to the company.

As might be expected there is an increasing number of roadmaps in different aspects of nanotechnology.  The UK ones are led by the MNT Network which has been established by the Department of Trade and Industry to co-ordinate the varied UK activities in nanotechnology.   A good example of the roadmapping process is the one for micro and nanotechnology in metrology.  The above procedure was used to provide a draft roadmap which was refined by posting it on the web.  The MNT Network set up a Focus Group, now known as the MNT Measurement Club, which is run by the National Physical Laboratory.  The launch of the Focus Group was attended by 150 interested parties and since then they have carried out many of the actions of the roadmap by holding well attended conferences.  This has provided an excellent model for roadmaps in other fields, where the aim is to fill the gaps in the UK’s knowledge base.

Follow this link to download the full paper on 'Roadmapping Congestion?'.

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