RECOVERY PACKAGE from EU
14 July, 2009 by Ina
The three PPPs are intended to prevent the crisis from deflecting attention from the EU's longer-term interests and the need to invest in its future. Research and Innovation are considered as strategic and "smart" investments to prepare the ground for the future of the EU economy which has to become a knowledge-based and low carbon economy, as stated in the Lisbon strategy. It is crucial for the EU to come out from the crisis stronger, more sustainable and more competitive.
The Factories of the Future PPP Initiative aims at helping EU manufacturing enterprises, in particular SMEs, to adapt to global competitive pressures by developing the necessary enabling technologies to support EU manufacturing across a broad range of sectors. It will help European industry to meet the increasing global consumer demand for greener, more customised and higher quality products through the necessary transition to a demand-driven industry with lower waste generation and energy consumption.
The activities will concentrate on increasing the technological base of EU manufacturing through the development and integration of the enabling technologies of the future, such as engineering technologies for adaptable machines and industrial processes, ICT for manufacturing, and the novel industrial handling of advanced materials.
The initiative will concentrate on industry-led R&D projects and will include demonstration activities, such as large-scale production-line demonstrators for validation and market applications. The partnership will work together to identify the R&D needs of manufacturing industry and in particular SMEs.
In order to further ensure the PPP character of the initiative, a large part of the activities in the projects is expected to be performed by industrial organisations themselves. This initiative, being by nature cross-sectoral and including efforts to address the needs of SMEs, aims to transform Europe into a dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy by delivering:
- A new European model of production systems for the factories of the future (e.g. transformable factories, networking factories of excellence, learning factories) depending on different drivers such as high performance, high customisation, environmental friendliness, high efficiency of resources, human potential and knowledge creation.
- ICT-based production systems and high quality manufacturing technologies capable of optimising their performance with a high degree of autonomy and adaptability for a balanced combination of high throughput and high accuracy production.
- Sustainable manufacturing tools, methodologies and processes that have the capability of cost-efficiently shaping, handling and assembling products composed of complex and novel materials.
The indicative budget for the "Factories of the future" PPP initiative is EUR 95 million in 2010, of which EUR 60 million is from the NMP Theme and EUR 35 million from the ICT Theme.
Deadline: 3 November 2009
For more information, visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/industriel_technologies/
http://cordis.europa.eu (generell informasjon)
www.manufuture.org (for mer om factories of the future)
www.smartgrids.eu (for mer om Green Cars)
or contact ina.spinnangr@sintef.no
