The report traces how fundamental science translates into applied innovation, highlighting funding trends, disciplinary patterns and the conditions needed to move discoveries from laboratory research into long-term industrial and economic value - directly relevant to manufacturers tracking where Europe's next generation of structural and functional materials will come from. Two funded projects illustrate the direct link to manufacturing. MADAM, advances solid-state additive manufacturing of high-strength aluminium alloys, combining a digital twin with experiments and machine learning to design lighter, stronger components for next-generation aerospace and mobility manufacturing with far less trial-and-error. SMARTISTIC has built a working augmented-reality tool that overlays real-time, AI-guided process guidance onto physical manufacturing equipment, already demonstrated on a real battery production line at the RS2E pilot facility in Amiens.

#AdvancedMaterials #ERC #FrontierResearch