Graphene Flagship

The Graphene Flagship is a European Union scientific research initiative. With a budget of €1 billion, it is one of the large scale initiatives organized by the Future and Emerging Technologies program, along with the Human Brain Project and the Quantum Technologies Flagship. Through a combined academic-industrial consortium, the research effort attempts to develop technologies which range from basic research to production and system integration, using the unique properties of graphene. There are some critics of this and similar initiatives, arguing that the funding of graphene-related research and innovation is disproportional to estimates of industrial potential. However, advocates for the Graphene Flagship note the merits of the initiative’s wide-ranging, applications-focused research, and the potential for graphene to catalyze innovation and economic growth across sectors and interest areas including biomedical research and health, transport, water safety, energy efficiency, battery and semiconductor development, wearable electronics, digital communications, sustainability and the environment, and space exploration.