International Center for Research on Innovative Bio-based Materials (ICR-BioM)

International Center for Research on Innovative Bio-based Materials (ICR-BioM), an international research center of excellence to be established at Bionanopark with a MAB PLUS grant awarded by the Foundation for Polish Science.

Experts decided that the submitted application was so good that the FNP awarded the grant regardless of the results of the second stage of the Teaming for Excellence competition. This is a claim to fame of a large group of people who had prepared the application as well as of Lodz University of Technology and of Max Planck Institute in Mainz who had supported the application.

- The establishment of a research institution that has the status of an International Research Agenda (MAB) first and foremost means that it will be possible to invite outstanding scientists, leaders in unique, interdisciplinary research to the city – professor Stanisław Bielecki, former rector of TUL and the initiator of the MAB application as well as Łódź joint application in the Teaming for Excellence competition under the Horizon 2020 framework, said.

The ICRI-BioM Center will aid international scientific cooperation and will enable us to involve outstanding scholars from around the world in lectures for students and doctoral students. It will also be a great place for student placements and doctoral research projects, as well as a potential source of their financing.

 - Currently, the legal status of the new institution is being decided. The rules of the competition require that the first head of the Centre, whose scientific achievement is of the European Research Council standards set for advanced grant winners, be appointed as a result of an international competition recruitment and the polymer laboratory be equipped, if the funding is to be realized over the period of full five years – professor Piotr Paneth, TUL, the second applicant in the ICRI-BioM call for applications (professor, Klaus Muellen, former head of Max Planck Institute, is the first one).

The next step, which will further strengthen the Center, will be to prepare an effective application in the second stage of the Teaming for Excellence competition. The application will be prepared and submitted jointly by Łódź universities (TUL, the University of Lodz,  Medical University of Lodz) and CBMM PAN and Max Planck Institute with the support of the city and region’s administration. – If we were successful in this competition too, it would mean another 15 million euro in funding, which would ensure an even better start for the new research unit – professor Paneth explained.