Thermoelectrics (TEs) could offer high-performing, efficient, durable and sustainable power-generation and heating/cooling solutions to catalyse the transition to a low-carbon economy, but current state-of-the-art TE modules rely on the toxic and scarce element tellurium. While TE materials based on magnesium, which is abundant and non-toxic, have recently emerged as a potential alternative, there are many challenges related to materials synthesis and performance, device design, fabrication and reliability, and economic and scaling viability, which need to be solved. MGICIAN will address these challenges by: i) bringing together a unique synergy of academic and industrial partners that are leaders in the field of ThermoElectric Coolers (TEC), ii) designing an immersive, interdisciplinary, inter-sectorial, and international research and training program, iii) recruiting, training and mentoring 15 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) in cutting-edge research and innovation in TE-based solid-state cooling for a low-carbon, sustainable future, and providing them with a broad set of skills to succeed in academic and industry careers. The consortium will include 14 academic institutions, one industry-near academic institute and 4 industry companies from different EU countries (DE, ES, IE, PT, CY, FR, and DK) plus UK. They will offer DCs top-tier supervision and training through interdisciplinary collaborations in TE material synthesis, TEC module fabrication, and system integration for scalable solid-state cooling applications up to TRL 6. Alongside scientific skills, DCs will be trained in ethics, entrepreneurship, project management, intellectual property, and communication, with industry secondments providing practical experience. MGICIAN aims to prepare future research leaders and entrepreneurs in TECs, enhancing Europe’s capacity to develop sustainable TE-based solutions.

Field-cycling relaxometry experienced a tremendous boost during the last decade. It represents an ease and versatile tool to monitor structure and dynamics in a wide range of time scales, from picoseconds to milliseconds, providing information of great importance for understanding the properties of biological systems and improving materials and drugs. Despite the numerous, emerging possibilities of applications, theoretical approaches for the analysis of the relaxometry data are often controversial and, for some systems, accurate models have not been identified. The FC-RELAX project aims at developing the theoretical knowledge of the field dependent relaxation processes taking advantage of the joint effort of some of the main European actors in the field, and at exploiting all potentialities of field-cycling relaxometry for different biomedical applications and for the characterization of advanced materials. The objectives are the improvement of efficacy and safety of MRI contrast agents and paramagnetic nanosystems for theranostics, the exploitation of relaxometry for cancer diagnosis and for the development of partially crystalline materials, and of ionic liquids for their use as electrolytes in energy storage devices. The program is based on high-level multidisciplinary and multisectoral training, and on a consortium of tight and complementary experimental scientists and theoreticians. FC-RELAX comprises 10 academic partners and 3 companies from 8 European countries, and will train 10 researchers who will benefit by extensive interactions between academic and industrial partners, endowed with state-of-the art scientific and technical expertise and infrastructures. The industrial partners include the only company in the world producing field-cycling relaxometers, a European company leader in the research and production of MRI contrast agents, and a scientific oriented technology company on the world market of magnetic resonance instrumentation.

Since 2012 the interest to the studies of the tear film lipid layer (TFLL) stabilizing the air/tear surface has dramatically raised. Firstly TFLL related abnormalities may be the main reason for dry eye syndrome (DES), the most prevalent ophthalmic public health disease affecting the quality of life of 10-30% of the human population worldwide and resulting in > €3.5 billion annual cost for EU. Secondly due to TFLL exceptionally slow turnover rate of 0.93 (±0.36)%/min, ophthalmic nanoemulsions mixing favorably with it can gain long residence at the ocular surface allowing for new routes of treatment not only of DES but also of glaucoma, the major vision threatening disease today. Therefore it is important to study the impact of key lipid classes to the micro- and nano-scale structure and to the dynamic surface properties of TFLL films at the air/water interface in health and disease and in vitro and vivo. This is what we will do by employing state of the art Langmuir surface balance, dilatational rheology, fluorescence and Brewster angle microscopy techniques as well as pharmacokinetic methodologies. The action will deliver both, (i) fundamental knowledge on TFLL functionality and DES mechanisms and (ii) molecules and formulations that can enhance TFLL functionality and lead to new therapies. The action will allow to European science and industry to aim for leadership in a field of increasing social importance.