Subject Areas

The following subject areas are currently featured on this website. Clicking on the subject name will take you to a detailed description of the associated funding, research and patent activity and the participating organisations associated with currently funded projects for the period 2000 to 2018.

Plastic Electronics

Organic electronics, plastic electronics or polymer electronics, is a branch of electronics that deals with conductive polymers, plastics, or small molecules. It is called ’organic ’ electronics because the polymers and small molecules are carbon -based, like the molecules of living things. This is as opposed to traditional electronics (or metal electronics) which relies on inorganic conductors such as copper or silicon.  More information...

Advanced Composites

Composite materials (or composites for short) are engineered materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct on a macroscopic level within the finished structure.

Composite materials have gained popularity (despite their generally high cost) in high-performance products that need to be lightweight, yet strong enough to take harsh loading conditions such as aerospace components (tails, wings, fuselages, propellers), boat and scull hulls, bicycle frames and racing car bodies. Other uses include fishing rods, storage tanks, and baseball bats. The new Boeing 787 structure including the wings and fuselage is composed largely of composites. Composite materials are also becoming more common in the realm of orthopaedic surgery.

Carbon composite is a key material in today’s launch vehicles and spacecraft. It is widely used in solar panel substrates, antenna reflectors and yokes of spacecraft. It is also used in payload adapters, inter-stage structures and heat shields of launch vehicles.  More information...

Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative Medicine is the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage, or congenital defects. This field holds the promise of regenerating damaged tissues and organs in the body by stimulating previously irreparable organs to heal themselves. It refers to a group of biomedical approaches to clinical therapies that may involve the use of stem cells. Examples include; the injection of stem cells or progenitor cells (cell therapies); another the induction of regeneration by biologically active molecules; and a third is transplantation of in vitro grown organs and tissues (Tissue engineering).  More information...

RFID

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the use of an object (typically referred to as an RFID tag) applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

Radio-frequency identification comprises interrogators, also known as readers, and tags, also known as labels.

Most RFID tags contain at least two parts. One is an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating a radio-frequency (RF) signal, and other specialised functions. The second is an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal.  More information...