1. What is your role in the EACN project?
The Cluster of the Automotive Industry of
Catalonia (CIAC) is leading the fifth work package of the EACN project, which
consists in managing the expert applications that will be giving support to the
joint projects that emerge from the EACN initiative. CIAC is also in charge of
coordinating the projects related to artificial intelligence and robotics.
Furthermore, our participation in the project
is based on giving support to all of the work packages with knowledge, expertise
and best practices.
2. What are, in your opinion, the main advantages
of participating in the EACN initiative?
The EACN initiative is a great opportunity for
companies, especially SMEs, to go international and to learn about the advantages
that the 4.0 Industry has to offer. Thanks to the resources that the EACN
partnership shares with the companies, they have direct access to the knowledge
that will facilitate the implementation of new technologies that are beneficial
for the automotive sector in terms of efficiency, quality of the product and
process, etcetera.
On the other hand, CIAC finds that
participating in this consortium is a great advantage to get to know how other
clusters around Europe work. Also, the constant sharing of best practices is
extremely beneficial for all actors involved, since it goes with the nature of
clusters to work around a collaborative environment.
We believe that initiatives such as this are
crucial to further enhance the development and implementation of the latest
technologies in the automotive sector, and the international cooperation in the
projects is the highlight in what makes them more valuable.
3. How has the global
health crisis of Covid-19 affected the project objectives? How does the
initiative help SMEs in this new context?
The pandemic has had an unexpected impact in
the automotive sector, and what we believe has been more challenging was the
urgent need of industries to adapt to the new scenario. The crisis has raised
new needs to companies, and they have had to be flexible in order to adapt to
the uncertain future.
Nevertheless, the initiative has helped SMEs through
the organization of a series of working groups under the EACN partnership that
tackled three different aspects of the pandemic that needed analysis and its
proper extrapolation of conclusions that would turn into solutions for the
sector. Those working groups, directed by Thomas Röhr (PVF), aimed at
transforming the Covid-19 crisis into an opportunity for the European Automotive
Industry.
4. Some months ago, the
initiative launched a call for experts through the EACN website. What is the
role of these experts?
The main goal of the call for experts was to
attract as many experts as possible to the EACN initiative so that they could
successfully give support to the companies whose objective is to develop a
joint project. The EACN partners made available the call among clusters’
associates, and those who have experience in European calls preparation and
submission were those who signed up as candidates.
These experts will be chosen by the companies
that are participating in a joint project proposal, up to one expert per each
project, and their main role will be granting assistance and directing the
design and writing of the project proposal that will be submitted for open
European calls. In previous work packages, the information about available
calls all over Europe –both at regional and international levels– was
collected and projects were initially allocated according to their
characteristics.
5. Apart from the
matchmaking event on robotics you organized in October last year, it is also
planned a Demo lab. What is the objective of these kind of events and why is so
important for companies to get involved in them?
According to our role as coordinators of the
robotics and artificial intelligence theme, last October we organized the first
matchmaking event where around thirty companies gathered in Barcelona to
discuss about the latest advances in the field, as well as to find common
answers to the latent challenges that the sector is facing nowadays.
The concept of the Demo-Lab days was first
thought as a further opportunity for SMEs to visit similar companies around
Europe, and as a good way of putting together the best practices that companies
have regarding the topics under the EACN initiative. Now we have adapted the
format to the current situation and the Demo-Labs are hold online.
6. Finally, what are the
next steps in the EACN initiative?
The next steps with the EACN partnership are to
successfully develop the joint projects and to further incentivize SMEs within
our clusters to engage in the initiative: participating in workshops,
Demo-Labs, networking events, etc. What will be valuable once the project has
finished is the maintenance of the relationship with our fellow partners in the
project, since international cooperation will be key in the days to come.
