"Photonic technologies are set to revolutionise our access to chemical and biochemical information, driven by demand for fast, low-cost, automated chemical analysis in applications from food safety, water quality, security, personal and preventative medicine, pharmacogenetics to point-of-care diagnostics. The low cost and robustness of microfabrication approaches which enabled the mobile phone and digital camera are expected to lead to similarly widespread deployment of chemical and bioanalytical microsystems. Optical techniques play a major role in quantitative chemical analysis and are the mainstay of detection in “lab-on-chip” systems, but the degree of optical functionality integrated in these systems remains extremely limited, and they have yet to benefit fully from the recent massive growth in photonics communications technologies. Photonic technologies for telecommunications operate in the near infra-red (NIR) wavelength region from 800nm – 1800nm, driven by the spectral transmission window in silica optical fibre. However, the ideal molecular “fingerprint” region for biochemical analysis is dominated by the mid infra-red (MIR) spectral region. Biosensor and lab-on-chip research and commercialisation have both been severely hampered by the lack of an integrated photonic platform which can operate over both the NIR and MIR spectral ranges, and which would enable new opportunities for sensitive, selective, label-free biochemical analysis. This programme sets out to advance the frontiers of biophotonics research in MIR materials systems, integrated photonic components for biochemical analysis and nanostructured photonic materials for light control. New approaches to clinical point-of-care diagnostics will be enabled by realising a mass-manufacturable monolithically-integrated photonics/optofluidic technology for chemical and biochemical analysis in the near and mid-infrared, exploiting advanced spectroscopic techniques for accessible biomedical diagnostic"