The European Commission is organising, on 14, 15 and 16 May, the European Cluster Conference in Bucharest, Romania, attended by more than 400 policy makers, cluster managers and other stakeholders from all over Europe to hear and discuss recent and future priorities of cluster policies and developments. This event helps to share good practices, knowledge and promote innovative and sustainable industrial modernisation and interregional cooperation, with a focus on building bridges between the different actors of the cluster community. The sixth edition of this Conference is focusing on issues such as digitisation and lack of skills, circular economy, shared value and social impact.
At this event, the European Commission highlighted the work of European professionals and projects of the year, where the European Automotive Cluster Network for Joint Industrial Modernisation project won the award for the best European initiative in the category "European Strategic Cluster Partnerships for Smart Specialisation investments (ESCP S3) of the Year". The award was given by Ulla Engelmann, Head of Unit - Advanced technologies, Clusters and Social Economy and Carsten Schierenbeck, Team Leader at the European Commission’s Advanced technologies, Clusters and Social Economy Unit.
The European Automotive Cluster Network for Joint Industrial Modernisation project has the following objectives:
- Strengthen cooperation between clusters through a common strategy for collaboration and joint cluster actions.
- Boost the competitiveness of cluster members, especially SMEs, the implementation of collaborative research projects and joint investments in industrial modernisation in the field of industry of the future.
- The basic idea is that common developments and investments make it possible to minimise risks and costs, share experiences and create trust between partners in order to prepare future collaborations.
- The EACN will create a strategic interregional collaboration and a solid industrial cooperation centred on four pillars: virtualisation for planning processes (simulation and modelling), robotics and artificial intelligence in production processes, elasticity of production processes in SMEs and skills and competences of people.
This award is a distinction to the great work that the automotive clusters of the project are doing with SMEs to support them in their industrial modernisation processes.
Project Partners: Pôle Véhicule du Futur (France), CEAGA - Galician Automotive Cluster (Spain), Silesa Automotive & Advanced Manufacturing Cluster (Poland), Automotive Cluster Bulgaria, Automotive Cluster Serbia, Clúster de la Indústria d'Automoció de Catalunya (Spain).
