The Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (WIN) and the University of Waterloo Chemical Engineering department are pleased to present a Distinguished Lecture Series talk by Dr. Max Lu, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey, Gildford, United Kingdom.
Accelerating Innovation in Nanomaterials through Partnerships
The conventional definition of innovation is successful translation of new ideas to social benefits. In my definition, innovation is simply any significant advance in technology or process leading to benefits for humanity and our planet.
One of the new paradigms of innovation is no doubt “open innovation” which is all about finding new ideas and applying them to beneficial purposes from anywhere, everywhere. It involves producing the new knowledge and ideas both within and outside an organisation, and exploitation of these innovative ideas through multiple and diverse routes. Therefore collaboration and partnership will be key to successful open innovation.
Nanotechnology and nanobiotechnology represent emerging new technologies with many promising applications across fields such as energy, transportation, biomedicine and agriculture. How to accelerate innovation in nanomaterials is an important question that need to be addressed alongside how to engineer the properties and performance of such materials for specific systems, processes or devices. Despite much progress in nanomaterials synthesis and characterisation, development of killer applications has been challenging and the route to market is very slow. This is because materials have multiple applications and could find various routes to market.
This talk provides an overview of a few key nanomaterials for energy conversion and storage, and for siRNA and dsRNA delivery, as examples. It will attempt to address the steps for their commercial applications. Besides a series of techno-economic assessment and structure-property-performance optimisation, partnerships with end-users or industry will be key to accelerated route to market.
As a double Highly Cited Researcher in both Materials Science and Chemistry, he has published over 500 journal papers on nanomaterials (h=111 and over 50,000 citations @Scopus). He is co-inventor of more than 20 granted international patents. He has been honoured with numerous awards including Orica Award, RK Murphy Medal, Le Fevre Prize, ExxonMobil Award, China International Science and Technology Award, Japan Chemical Society Lecture Award, Chemeca Medal, and P.V. Danckwerts Lecture. He was also recently honoured with a Medal of the Order of Australia (Officer in the General Division) for his distinguished service to education and international research in the field of materials chemistry and nanotechnology, to engineering, and to Australia-China relations.
Professor Lu has served on many government committees and advisory boards including those under the Australian Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, ARC College of Experts, Australian Synchrotron, Stem Cells Australia. He is Fellow of Institution of Chemical Engineers, Royal Society of Chemistry, Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and World Academy of Science.
Please RSVP before October 29, 2018.