A project with a radical approach to providing photonics technology expertise to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe is delivering positive results just one year into its term, and will ultimately prove influential in the forthcoming Horizon 2020 innovation program.

That's according to Hugo Thienpont, who co-ordinates the “ACTMOST” (Access Centre to Micro-Optics Expertise, Services and Technologies) project at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. The approach has already led to the development of a new handheld optical scanner that is being used in cancer research – one of 12 industry-focused collaborations that it has collaborated on so far.

To read more, go to: http://optics.org/news/3/3/33