A failure to quantitatively control adhesion costs billions of euros each year in failed components, suboptimal product performance and life-threatening infections. Nano-enabled and bio-inspired products offer practical solutions to overcome adhesion and friction problems in these application areas. Current tools and methodologies, however, have so far failed to produce any standardised interpretation of adhesion data linking nanoscale adhesion to the macroscopic data. OYSTER uses contact mechanics to bridge adhesion data at multiple length scales and link interfacial adhesion to physicochemical properties. OYSTER brings Europe’s first-class laboratories and SMEs to take existing nanoscale characterisation technologies towards widespread utilisation in process optimisation and model validation. OYSTER achieves this by sharing metadata in an Open Innovation Environment, where new paradigms of multi-scale contact mechanics are validated on selected application oriented reference materials through continuous interaction with the European Materials Characterisation Council (EMCC). This way, OYSTER generates wider agreement over adhesion measurement protocols by multimodal Atomic Force Microscopy and high-speed nanoindentation. Tools and methodologies at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 will be progressed to TRL 6 through unambiguous, standardised, quantitative measurements of adhesion from nano- to macro-scale. Nano-patterned wear resistant surfaces and chemically/topologically functionalised soft contact lenses will show case nano-enabled and bioinspired products for significant market impact. In this way, OYSTER implements the triangle of modelling, characterisation and manufacturing to the wider context of industrial exploitation specially through small and medium enterprises, stakeholders’ networks such as EMCC, European Materials Modelling Councils (EMMC) and European Pilot Project Network (EPPN), and international standard organisations.

COGITOR represents a novel approach to cybernetics, proposing the study of Colloidal (liquid) Cybernetic Systems (CCS), a multifunctional liquid-based platform that we have designed to be capable of pressure sensing (i), computing and data storage (ii), energy harvesting (iii) and integrating fully custom electronics (iv). A CCS provides operation in extreme environments by definition, having distributed architecture (homogeneous liquid plus random network architecture), being fault-tolerant and featuring self-healing capabilities. Within COGITOR in 54 months the consortium will provide a platform where liquid electronics efforts can converge from all over the world, making European research the point of reference for this big step forward. COGITOR measurable and specific objectives are: i) creating an impedance liquid state pressure sensor with spatial and temporal resolution; ii) producing an holonomic reversible memory written/erased electrically and read by tomographic Microwave Impedance Spectroscopy; the electrical operation will be used to implement learning (both sequential and concurrent) and calculation, where the system acts as a many-input Boolean circuit; iii) harvesting energy from a thermal gradient artificially induced by IR radiation upon the prototype; iv) integration and testing of the final CCS prototype, testing self-healing and fault tolerance capabilities, as well as assessing interference, also under EE conditions varying T, p and B. The engineering applications that we plan to exploit will be part of the intellectual property of a spin-off company. The consortium is well-balanced with cutting edge Research Organizations across EU (IIT – Italy, UWE – UK, EMPA - Suisse) and companies (PC – Germany, PNO – Spain) that will closely collaborate to develop and really transfer knowledge and innovations into products and related services.