In the next ten years scientific developments in the field of nanophotonics as a key driving force in photonics will influence many different industrial branches e.g. automotive & avionics, industrial automation ICT, health & well-being, environment or safety & security. In these industrial sectors many SMEs are involved as traditional suppliers, start-ups or producers of high tech products.

In order to remain competitive on these markets, the companies have to integrate these new results and developments in their commercial vision for future products. The project PhotonicRoadSME will develop technology roadmaps roadmaps to identify future RTD strategies for Europe in three domains [related nanophotonic materials / novel photonic devices & components / related key fabrication technologies] comprising the latest high level scientific results. Their functions will be a. to identify trends in research and development and b. to associate them to product and application visions.

They will outline, which of them are technically and economically promising or possess high potentials for problem-solving and where potential risks and relevant investigation requirements are assumed or social discussion requirement could prevail. Therefore, four different industrial branches will be analyzed (ICT, health & well-being, environment and safety & security).

The validation of the roadmap results will be done by a consensus building process by integrating industrial and scientific experts from Europe and third countries. In a second step these roadmaps will be adapted to the SME industrial culture in order to facilitate the integration of the European photonic RTD results in the different industrial branches. The project involves well-known European research organisations and networks, which are leaders in the domain of photonics, European experts in the development of technology roadmaps and organisations from 5 European countries.