When the premises of the American Civil War forced the textile mills of Mississippi to a virtual stop, and the Russian Empire started seeking new cotton suppliers for its huge domestic market, Ludwig Knoop had a brilliant idea.

Visionary, high-risk, long-term and breaking down traditional boundaries. These are just some of the key ingredients in breakthrough technologies being targeted by FET researchers across Europe.

Andre Konstantin Geim is the only person who ever received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel . He was born in 1958 in Russia, and is a Dutch-British physicist with German, Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian roots.