Key for the European automotive industry will be to keep the production within Europe. Enabler for this are novel manufacturing technologies allowing for flexible manufacturing of customised products down to small or medium-size volume. It will be important that such technologies become also feasible for low-cost segments.
We are looking for academic centers of excellence capable for future fundamental research on:
• Qualifying additive manufacturing for safety-critical automotive parts
• Inline control concepts improving quality parts (zero deficient parts)
• Flexible manufacturing and assembly lines by utilizing advanced human-machine interactions (robot assisted manufacturing, integration of mobile robots in assembly lines)
• Advanced manufacturing technologies for multi-material parts and smart materials
ERTRAC highlights the important opportunities for innovation in road transport, recognising that major transformations of the European Mobility system are ahead with respect to alternative energies, electrification, automation, digitalisation, and the sharing economy. Europe must act together in order to exploit the potential of these innovations: to develop Europe-wide solutions, get technology leadership, and keep research excellence, production and jobs in the European Union. Research efforts in the short and medium-term timeframe will focus on mass market introduction from 2030 onwards.
The research topic described has been prepared by experts from the ERTRAC Global Competitiveness group led by: Dr. David Storer, CRF-FCA and Prof. Thilo Bein, Fraunhofer-LBF
ERTRAC is the European Technology Platform bringing together all stakeholders of Road Transport Research. Its public-private multi-stakeholders nature involves industry, academia and research providers together with public authorities from the national and local levels. ERTRAC works in close cooperation with the European associations that represent the different components of road transport, while collaborating with other European Technology Platforms.
European pre-competitive collaborative research has a very high added-value by bringing together the many private and public stakeholders involved in transport: working together, developing partnerships, and implementing cross-sectoral collaboration are important assets to speed-up the innovation process in Europe.
In this context, the specific tasks of ERTRAC are to:
- Provide a strategic vision for road transport research and innovation in Europe.
- Define strategies and roadmaps to achieve this vision through the definition and update of a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) and implementation research roadmaps.
- Stimulate effective public and private investment in road transport research and innovation.
- Contribute to improving coordination between the European, national, regional public and private R&D activities on road transport.
- Enhance the networking and clustering of Europe's research and innovation capacities.
- Promote European commitment to Research and technological development, ensuring that Europe remains an attractive region for researchers, and enhancing the global competitiveness of the transport industries.
- Support the implementation of Horizon 2020, the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
The new Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), published in April 2018, is a key document of ERTRAC with respect to preparing for 'Horizon Europe' (2021-2017), the forthcoming ninth European Research Framework Programme. The new ERTRAC SRA has the ambition to anchor the research work into the societal needs while looking more at the benefits of innovations for the end users. ERTRAC also wants to emphasize the importance of Road Transport and Mobility for the Society and the Economy, and hence consistently refers to the potential impact of the research topics.
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