Positioning Cyprus as a hub for advanced materials design

While innovations such as computational modelling, artificial intelligence (AI), data science and high-performance computing (HPC) are redefining whole industries, the opportunities are not evenly spread across Europe. 

“In Cyprus, we’ve missed out on some of the benefits, especially when compared to other EU countries, partly due to difficulties in attracting and retaining the right skilled talent,” explains Vangelis Harmandaris, European Research Area (ERA) Chair holder of the SimEA project.

The ERA Chair is an EU-funded initiative that helps researchers to engage with institutions in countries whose research and innovation performance could benefit from a boost – so-called ‘Widening Countries’. 

Taking advantage of this opportunity to broaden local computational science and engineering opportunities, the SimEA team set out to advance computer-based materials design in Cyprus, while forging long-lasting industry collaborations. 

“Our computational designs significantly reduce the cost and time of experimental cycles and have positioned the team as an attractive partner for industry within Cyprus, Europe and further afield,” says Harmandaris.

SimEA brought in 18 projects (seven with industry) thanks to successful competitive grant applications, which more than matched the EU’s initial investment.

Rapidly optimising materials 

SimEA focused on the technologies and advanced materials most likely to meet a range of emerging societal and industrial challenges, prioritising those related to the green transition. 

For example, simulations of physical systems explored polymer nanocomposites and thin films essential for automotive and green tech applications such as energy storage. These molecular machine learning (ML)-based simulations and engineering methods predicted how nanoparticles could enhance the mechanical properties and overall performance of composite materials. This enabled them to identify the applications, such as catalytic materials for CO2 reduction and energy, that were most likely to benefit. 

“This multiscale approach provides valuable insights that would be difficult, or sometimes even impossible, to obtain experimentally. Using computers to explore the material design process makes it more targeted and cost-effective,” remarks Harmandaris.

The team also worked on biomolecules for biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications, alongside modelling the fluid-structure interactions relevant to engineering applications, such as water harvesting and biomedical devices. 

Collaborations with academia and national industrial partners have been key to the project’s approach. “Our focus areas play to partners’ strengths, while meeting their needs for growth, ensuring not only the scientific relevance of our results but also real-world impacts,” adds Harmandaris.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing, as Harmandaris explains: “Encouraging SMEs to adopt simulation-first methods required patience. Integrating physics-based simulations, ML algorithms and HPC tools involves steep learning curves, so local training helped develop the highly specialised skills needed.”

ERA Chairs are able to help here, by issuing grants which support essential, but non-research-related activities, such as team recruitment, training, networking and publications. Doing so not only consolidates research excellence and the capacity to secure competitive research funding, but also increases the attractiveness of host institutions, regions and countries for internationally mobile researchers.

Increasing knowledge generation and transfer boosts both the availability of highly skilled jobs on the island, alongside the competitiveness of Cyprus-based industries. 

Aligning with European research priorities

By pushing the capability of advanced materials design for sectors at the heart of sustainability efforts, such as energy and transport, SimEA aligns well with both the EU’s Green Deal and digital transformation ambitions. 

But enabling the research ecosystem in Cyprus to do so over the long term requires a supportive infrastructure. 

The creation of the first computational engineering ERA Chair group in Cyprus has helped launch research to strengthen the country’s HPC ecosystem and build capacity in simulation-and-data-driven engineering. 

Meanwhile the establishment of the Management Innovation Office at the Computation-based Science and Technology Research Centre (CaSToRC), with a mission of driving innovation capacity (notably through an industrial scouting programme), alongside industrial and government partnerships, should prove galvanising. 

Additionally, an industrial programme, inaugurated at the Cyprus Institute, is building a sustainable innovation pipeline, guided by initiatives such as EuroCC 2 and European Digital Innovation Hubs (DiGiNN). 

And furthering European collaborations, a SimEA project member was elected to the Executive Board of the European Network for Industrial Mathematics (EU-MATHS-IN), with national networks also established: CY-MATHS-IN for Industrial Mathematics, and Cy-AMN, the Advanced Materials cluster. 

The team continues to further validate and scale up their achievements, extending simulations to industrial pilots and real-world manufacturing, benefiting from closer collaboration with partners across the EU. 

While SimEA’s learning and tools are already openly available, with local industry encouraged to take advantage, the project is now developing new hybrid techniques for different materials.

“Ultimately, the real benefit of accelerating advanced materials design is for people and the planet, delivering new green tech solutions and sustainable products with reduced environmental footprints,” says Harmandaris.