ESCP-S3: 4 motors for the European Industry 4.0

Submitted by Patrick Vuillermoz on 27 December 2016

The “4 motors for the European Industry 4.0 “ initiative that is proposed within the call for expression of interest for European Strategic Cluster Partnerships for Smart Specialization Investments has been developed and set up within the regional leading project: Four Motors for Europe.

The Four Motors for Europe is a cooperation founded in 1988 that gathers four European regions: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Baden-Württemberg, Catalonia and Lombardy. Together, the Four Motors have 36 million inhabitants and represent 6.78% of the European GDP (1.249 billion Euros). The cooperation involves other regions (“associates”) with a similar profile, namely, Flanders (Belgium), Wales (UK), Malopolska (Poland) and, more recently, Quebec.

Under the 4M Chair of Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Region, the event “Industrie 2020 First” was held on June 15th 2016 in Lyon and gathered more than 600 participants from the 4 regions. At this occasion the working group “4 Motors 4 Industry of Future” was created bringing together clusters, innovation agencies, and experts in the regional authorities.

The Four Motors and associates, first class regions in their respective countries, present many points in common. Amongst them, a GDP above the European average, a solid and innovative economic structure, a rich natural heritage and a thriving tourism industry. Furthermore, these regions have very similar domains of smart specialisation, especially on factory of the future but not only (energy, smart mobility, health, ICT…). Well recognized at the European level, this network of excellence works for the economic, scientific and technological competitiveness in the four Regions, with the objective to use the institutional cooperation framework to identify, launch and/or support collaborations between stakeholders.

The goal of the initiative of the “4 Motors 4 Industry of the Future” is to set up a partnership between leading industrial regions in Europe toward Industry 4.0 and to develop a joint concrete action plan through a long-term strategy for enhancing and supporting the transition of regional manufacturing companies toward the implementation of Industry 4.0 era, and to potentially think to longer term perspectives towards an Industry 5.0.

The 4 motors for the European Industry 4.0 “  initiative aims to develop joint roadmap and projects in key and specific area of the Industry of the future Smart Manufacturing, including Production upscaling of new materials, Industrialization of innovative processes, Smart product design and production, Enabling technologies for “4.0” machines and processes, New business models for growing markets.

The partnership will aim at developing the following actions:

  1. Connection of the different “Industry 4.0” regional Alliances / working groups ecosystems:
  2. Connection and coordination of each “industry 4.0” regional S3 activities
  3. Joint roadmap on industry 4.0:
  4. Strategic Innovation Schemes & Policies
  5. Common projects & tools (Matchmaking activities, Project financing schemes)

The consortium gathers regional innovation and industrial clusters in the different Regions of the partnership:

  • Plastipolis, Viameca and Minalogic (Clusters from Auvergne Rhône Alpes),
  • AFIL (Associazione Fabbrica Intelligente Lombardia),
  • MicroTEC Südwest (cluster dedicated to all microsystem technology activities in Baden-Württemberg), Allianz 4.0 (network aiming to pool technological expertise in production as well as IT and communications to promote Industrie 4.0),
  • Eurecat (Technology Centre in Catalonia), ACCIO (Catalan Agency),
  • Flanders Make,
  • clusters from Wales including University of Cardiff
  • Malopolska from Poland (to be confirmed).

The initiative already received supporting letters from regional authorities of Auvergne Rhône Alpes, Lombardy and Catalonia.

Cluster organisation
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