innoLAE 2016

A big thank you to all of our sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and delegates for making innoLAE 2016 such an interesting, successful and enjoyable event; we look forward to seeing you all next year at innoLAE 2017. Attendance increased by 30% this year with nearly 200 delegates representing 88 different organisations from 11 countries, and the delegates were equally-balanced between industry and academia, making innoLAE the best place to get to know all of the UK LAE community.

With an emphasis on manufacturing, the conference was an opportunity to hear the latest results from UK academic researchers, the latest developments from UK and international companies active in the technology, and keynotes from top organisations. The packed conference programme featured 37 speakers in 2 parallel sessions and 36 poster presentations as well as a busy exhibition area with 16 exhibitors. Delegates also had valuable opportunities for networking with colleagues at the drinks reception and gala dinner at Selwyn College.

Feedback has been very positive:

“Excellent networking opportunities and a good blend of industry, RTOs and academia” -Delegate

“Excellent conference- it has established a significant position in the UK Large-Area Electronics sector.” -Delegate

"All presentations, posters and exhibitions were prepared to a very high standard. Really good balance between technical detail and ‘big picture’ applications discussion." -Delegate

"Hearing the industry perspective (both from talks but also from discussions on the exhibition floor) on what is valuable/important is very useful." -Delegate

"I had some very good discussions with other companies..." -Exhibitor 

"A very welcome conference indeed." -Delegate

"Diverse range of attendees!" -Delegate

Our keynote speakers were Professor Donal Bradley from University of Oxford, who gave the audience an overview of the plastic electronics: electrode materials, injection layers and solution-processed small molecule OLEDs, and Dr Faiz Sherman from Procter & Gamble, who talked about the potential use of sensors in consumer goods.

Other highlights included organic bioelectronics - new tools for medicine and biology, the use of bioelectronics in robotics and neuroprosthetics, production and measurement of roll-to-roll ALD barriers for electronic application, printed and flexible electronics in wearables and sensors, presentations on energy harvesting and storage, and cutting edge manufacturing technologies.

There were presentations from:

Cambridge Display Technology, DZP Technologies, FlexEnable, GlaxoSmithKline, Meyer Burger, M-Solv, NovaCentrix, NeuDrive, Optomec, Oxford Lasers, Procter & Gamble, CPI, EPFL, Holst Centre, IDtechEx, IMEC, NPL, Specific, National Technical University of Athens, VTT, Imperial College London, Linköping University, Nottingham Trent University, Oxford University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Swansea University, Tampere University of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Manchester and University of Glasgow.

There were also presentations about the EPSRC Centre by Chris Rider, Centre Director, and talks about the latest results from projects in the EPSRC Centre presented by its academic members. The full innoLAE 2016 conference programme can be downloaded below.

innoLAE 2016 was generously sponsored by NovaCentrix (Gold), Beko (Silver), CPI (Silver) and FlexEnable (Silver). They were joined in the exhibition area by Sherkin Technologies, RK Print Coat Instruments Ltd, Semilab, Meyer Burger, Haydale, Heraeus, IDTechEx, inseto, Optomec, Oxford Lasers, PEL and SPS Europe.

The best poster prize was awarded to the team led by Professor Martin Taylor (Bangor University) in a collaboration with Smartkem Ltd for their poster entitled “Organic ring oscillators with sub 200ns gate delay from a p-type semiconductor blend”.

The 2016 Pathfinder call funded by the EPSRC Centre was announced on 2 February 2016; this will create more opportunities to collaborate with the EPSRC Centre and for industry to engage with UK academics to develop novel breakthroughs in LAE manufacturing.

If you are interested in LAE technology from any perspective, whether as a researcher, a manufacturer, an end-user, a business developer, a policy maker or a trade association we invite you to stay connected and join us for the innoLAE 2017 conference.

“The Programme Committee has done a fantastic job in building the programme of the conference this year, selecting important topics and world-class speakers in the "field. We’ve had a wonderful response from the UK and international community, which is reflected not only in the excellent oral presentations, but also in the amount of high quality work presented at the poster session and the level of industrial involvement at the exhibition. We are pleased with the increased attendance and attention received. All speakers in the conference sessions delivered excellent talks that were appreciated by the attendees and, from feedback we are receiving, we feel encouraged to continue this journey in a moment of unprecedented growth and opportunity for the Flexible and Large-Area Electronics manufacturing "field”.

Dr Luigi Occhipinti, innoLAE Conference Chair

innoLAE 2016 Programme Committee

• Dr Luigi Occhipinti (EPSRC Centre National Outreach Manager and Conference Chair)

• Mr Chris Rider (EPSRC Centre Director)

• Dr Mark Leadbeater (EPSRC Centre Programme Manager)

• Professor Steve Beeby (University of Southampton)

• Professor Tim Claypole (University of Swansea)

• Dr Ravinder Dahiya (University of Glasgow)

• Dr Alan Hodgson (Alan Hodgson Consulting Ltd, previously with 3M)

• Professor Donald Lupo (Tampere University of Technology)

• Dr Simon Ogier (Centre for Process Innovation)

• Professor Tsuyoshi Sekitani (Osaka University)

• Professor Henning Sirringhaus (University of Cambridge)

• Professor Natalie Stingelin (Imperial College London)

• Professor Michael Turner (University of Manchester)