​A joint mobility collaboration between the European Union’s Graphene Flagship and the United States’ National Science Foundation (NSF) will offer new opportunities for international research synergy within the area of Graphene and two dimensional (2D) materials and devices. The agreement is a direct result coming out of a series of international workshops initiated by the Graphene Flagship.

Though a European research initiative, the Graphene Flagship is actively following developments worldwide. An important step in its strategy for collaborations outside Europe has been a number of international workshops held during 2015 in the US, Japan and Korea that will be followed by workshops in Europe during 2016 and 2017. 

The first joint US-EU Workshop on 2D Layered Materials and Devices was held in Arlington, Virginia, in April 2015 and the second one is scheduled to take place in Manchester, UK in October 2016. One of the direct outcomes of the first event is a scheme that will offer researchers, supported by the NSF or working for partners of the Graphene Flagship, mobility grants to enable visits or stays of a few months in Graphene Labs on both sides of the Atlantic. The goal is to enable research synergy and reduce some of the current barriers to working internationally.

“We are very happy to be collaborating with the US and encourage our researchers, especially those in the early stage of their careers, to take the opportunity and apply for mobility grants to expand their horizons and open up for new exciting ideas that can drive the development of Graphene and 2D materials forward”, says Ana Helman, Leader of Alignment, Graphene Flagship.

The Graphene Flagship foresees a system of stipends for travel and living costs in the US based on clear and transparent criteria to select the most promising proposals. The expectations are that these international collaborations reaching beyond Europe will bring added value to the research of 2D materials and benefit the overall aim of the Graphene Flagship to take graphene from academic laboratories to society by the year 2023.