Introduction

The World Nano Foundation and its partners have an ongoing relationship and exchange of ideas and strategy on how to solve global problems with assisting global stakeholders in the nanotechnology field. Many regions of the world have invested heavily in nanotechnology, by way of funding research or building infrastructure in the past. Billions of dollars have been spent since the US National Nanotechnology Initiative was launched in 2001, and this funding is planned to be ongoing. More recent entries to global nanotechnology industrial developments such as Russia and China have highlighted the fact that it is not always necessary to be the first yet making the right decisions and putting the right resources behind them are critical when working globally. We have teams all over the world that support our membership through its business intelligence unit and consultancy services.

Investment, funding and scoping

Investment in nanotechnology, especially in ground-breaking innovation involving 2D materials, such as Graphene has increased in recent years. Following in the footsteps of cutting-edge research, governments in the EU, US, UAE and Asia pacific are trying to capitalise on lucrative prospects for start-ups and licencing in this area. Funding is the key aspect of this process as a lot of high impact ideas are often born in startups with high growth potential.

The World Nano Foundation and its partners have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to evaluate such growth opportunities, so that they are fit for the 21st century’s globalised and interconnected world. We provide independent and well-rounded analysis of early stage innovation developments and alert our key stakeholders of the opportunity to develop these technologies globally. We pride ourselves in delivering unbiased and multidisciplinary analysis to our members and partners. We cover all areas of nanotechnology including advanced nanomaterials (carbon nanotubes, graphene, quantum dots, Graphene oxide, etc) as well as market evaluations and impact assessments.

Standards, certification and regulation

The World Nano Foundation team are world leaders in nanotechnology standardisation. Along with our team, are international governmental laboratories and metrology institutes that carry as much workload in developing international standards and we have the global chair for these standards on our global advisory board. We work directly with industry cutting down unnecessary administration burden and reducing the time for technology to become international standard.

Our team has been and is currently working on governmental certification programmes in countries where nanotechnology is seen for what it is – an advance in technology that helps the economy and the consumers.

In countries that took a strict hard regulatory path such as European Union with the recent amendment of REACH regulation geared for much stricter reporting of nanomaterials, we assist our private, national and supra-national (like European Chemical Agency ECHA) in developing appropriate implementation plans. The development of robust certification or regulation regime is complex and involves consultations with all stakeholders throughout the process and the development of robust technical guidelines on how all players may comply with requirements. Therefore, our services in this area of Nanotechnology are at the cutting edge of standards and regulatory approval globally.

Nano Commodity Exchange Trading Platform and Services

The Nano Commodity Exchange platform has been developed, tested and built over the last 4 years and is now trading live commercial nanomaterial trades internationally. Nanomaterials will represent 40% of the growth in global GDP for nanotechnology commercialisation. The Exchange forms part of the network under The World Nano Foundation and Nanomagazine. The trading platform allows for price discovery for these new materials to be accelerated into industry on scale. Currently there are over 500 asset classes on the Exchange and this is expected to grow to 5,000 over the next 3 years. The Exchange gives certainty to buyers and sellers for quality and safety of these materials. The plan is for the Nano Commodity Exchange to open new trading desks in other regions of the world in the next few years. The Exchange can offer advice and certainty for Nano producers, manufacturers and industrial users which will speed the adoption of these new materials globally.

IP and Licensing Services

The World Nano Foundation and Nanomagazine have developed a network of international experts based in various countries and specialising in many complementary sectors of nanotechnology. Through this network we source knowhow and IP for our clients. We have contacts in academic institutions, institutes and private developers who often seek licencing agreements and collaborations with wider industries.

We also have developed relationships with IP consultancies and legal practices around the world in various jurisdictions in order to facilitate the commercialisation and the uptake of new technologies. In some difficult technology transfer cases our direct contacts with developers (in those cases academic researchers) allows us to put the suppliers of innovation in direct collaboration with industrial users.

Regulatory Standards, Certification Services

Due to the fact that the development of multi-stakeholder standards or regulations may take time a lot of expert effort these projects need patience and the right support and advice over the length of a project. Usually such work is taken up by large corporations and governments.

The following are only estimates and may vary in price and delivery time depending on the scope of the work and complexity of consultations.

Standards development may take from 2 to 4 years under ISO/IEC globally recognised system. National standards have only national penetration and would not lead to facilitation of international trade except in some rare circumstances. The cost of development of such international standards varies from £400k to £1m. These numbers are based on the existing prices that EU Commission is offering for CEN standards that link to ISO developments. The costs may be spread over the length of a project on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Development of a certification programme rests on the well-accepted national and international standards developed above. This must rely on the developed basic technical documents and may be developed relatively quickly – in 1-2 years. The development of national certification scheme that fosters external training through the use of international standards may cost between £200k and £600k.

Development of sustainable and forward-looking regulation that takes into account innovation , commercialisation as well as environmental and health aspects of nanotechnology is complex. It links the political and strategic decisions for a national government with internationally acceptable standards of trade and technical guidelines. Often OECD provides such guidelines on environmental and health and safety of nanomaterials, but national regulators interpret such guidelines for their own good.

Assisting governments with regulatory developments requires lots of support, resource and expertise which can be provided by The World Nano Foundation and its teams. This type of work is approximately £300k to £600k per year plus travel costs as this will need to include extensive travel and liaison with national and international organisations. Each project will have its own project timeline for each development as this may depend on policy and political decisions of that national government.

Media and Marketing Services

The World Nano Foundation and Nanomagazine can provide media and marketing, strategy consultancy services and reports internationally across all its media platforms highlighted within this document. The cost of this will start from £100 per hour up to £500 per hour or on a project proposal cost basis.

Strategy for Manufacturing, Price Discovery and Commercialisation Services

The World Nano Foundation and Nanomagazine can provide strategy for manufacturing, price discovery and commercialisation services internationally across all industries affected by Nanotechnology. The cost of this will start from £100 per hour up to £500 per hour or on a project proposal cost basis.