Graphene hits the funding jackpot

Graphene, the atom-thick layer of carbon, is one of two big winners to emerge from the European commission's future and emerging technologies competition. Over the next 10 years the commission will put €1 billion (£855 million) into the project that will 'investigate and exploit the unique properties' of the material. 

The money will come from the commission's Horizon 2020 programme, which is the successor to the Seventh Framework Programme. The flagship graphene project will be led by Jari Kinaret at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. It will involve more than 100 research groups, 136 principal investigators and four Nobel laureates. The other big winner was the human brain project, which will also receive €1 billion. This neuroscience project will create the most sophisticated model of the human brain ever made with the ultimate aim of helping to develop new drugs to treat neurological conditions.