Final Report Summary - INDUSTRYTECH2012 (Industrial Technologies conference 2012) Executive Summary: Industrial Technologies 2012 took place from 19-21 June 2012 in Aarhus, Denmark and offered an integrated coverage of nanoscience and nanotechnology, advanced materials, and new production processes (NMP). The event programme highlighted the knowledge intensive products and processes driving European growth to 2020, which identifying solution to improve the framework conditions for innovation in Europe. Several sessions looked at those products and processes where Europe can build or maintain global leadership in the next decade; these included mass producing low emission vehicles, energy-efficient building in the construction industry, the NMP Call 2013 and 16 sessions discussing the hot-topics of cross-cutting Key Enabling Technologies bringing together researchers and industry to address both technical and non-technological challenges and opportunities for European growth. The High Level Group on Key Enabling Technologies and the consultation on the Common Strategic Framework for Horizon 2020 have contributed a comprehensive understanding of the challenging framework conditions for European innovation. Industrial Technologies 2012 has moved the discussion forward to specific, actionable solutions to address these challenges and ensure that European industry can achieve its full potential for innovation. The Industrial Technologies 2012 Conference has been jointly organised by the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center at Aarhus University (iNANO), the Center for Industrial Production at Aalborg University (CIP), and Spinverse. The event was Europe's leading Industrial Technologies event, hosted under the auspices of the Danish Presidency of the European Council and is supported by The European Commission Directorate for Research and Innovation and its Industrial Technologies Programme. The overall event theme was European growth and competitiveness by 2020 through Commercialising technology possibilities that match industrial needs Smart solutions for improving the European innovation environment 777 high-level delegates from 37 countries had the opportunity to meet high profile speakers from industry, government and research, discuss visions for European industry and research by 2020 and understand how to implement solutions and to succeed in the face of global competition. A main focus was put on the synergies arising from the combination of cutting-edge nanotechnology (N), advanced materials (M) and innovative production technologies (P). Industrial Technologies 2012 concluded with industry committing to public-private innovation as the route to sustained economic growth. Representatives of industries employing over 19 million Europeans underlined the critical importance of industrial innovation as a route to European economic recovery, and stated their willingness to contribute and engage with governments and the research community to ensure that this is achieved. This was expressed in a declaration (The Industrial Technologies Declaration) signed by the chairs of Public Private Partnerships covering manufacturing, automotive, construction and the process industries. Project Context and Objectives: Conference Industrial Technologies 2012 was decided to take place in Aarhus due to the Presidency of the European Council being in Denmark during this period. The content of the event has been guided by a steering group which represents many of the groups most involved with industrial technologies research and development. These include representatives from industry, research, and the European Technology Platforms and Public Private Partnerships. The Venue The Aarhus Concert Hall was identified as suitable venue. This bright and airy venue provided comfortable conference rooms for plenaries, sessions, workshops and private meeting as well as for other side events. There was plenty of space to move around the conference and exhibition, and has been an inspiring setting for the event. Selecting the PCO Spinverse launched a tender for PCOs (Professional Congress Organizer), in order to evaluate different possibilities and identify what is the best value for such a high-profile event. For the PCO contract, two offers were requested and compared on the basis of price (50%) and quality (50%). The Conference Programme Industrial Technologies 2012 featured 5 plenary and 18 parallel sessions and 16 workshops. The themes of the sessions stemmed from the discussions with the Steering Committee of the Event, European Commission representatives, Event Beneficiaries, and the individual experts identified in each theme. The speakers for each session were chosen in the same process. The plenaries and parallel sessions dealt with themes revolving around nanotechnologies, new materials and new production technologies. Sessions usually had the form of individual talks followed by questions & answers from the audience. Plenary 1, Visions for 2020 The opening plenary was a look ahead to the development of industrial innovation policy towards 2020, with representation from the member states and the European Commission. For Europe to be able to take part in an increasingly competitive global market, all actors in the EU, private as well as public, need to join forces. Discussions ranged over grand challenges in Europe and how to solve these through interdisciplinary research and key enabling technologies; the need for more investment in innovation and research, mobility and attraction of knowledge and common agendas and partnerships between private and public actors; the importance of fostering creativity and entrepreneurship in education as well as in industry; and the challenges and opportunities in long-term investment and the balancing of basic and applied research. Plenary 2, European Industry in 2020 In the second plenary a panel of industrial leaders established their own visions for the development of European industry to 2020, setting out what they see as the key challenges, and how these can be overcome with action from all stakeholders; industry, research and government. The presentations highlighted the industry as job creators and the importance of manufacturing and production in Europe grounded in strong roots of innovation. The competitiveness of Europe should be established through collaborations along the value chain and public private partnerships and innovation should be driven by such broad collaborations taking into account costumers, users, suppliers and R & D organisations. Furthermore the importance of education, skills and entrepreneurship was highlighted. Plenary 3, Innovation in Industrial Technologies The storyline of the Wednesday plenary revolved around how the funding and focus of R&D in Europe can be best aligned to match the changes in the environment and the global economic development. Speakers represented different industries to have as wide spectrum of different angles as possible. Plenary 4, International Cooperation International competition does not need to be regarded as a zero-sum game. This session brought together policymakers and experts from other world regions to identify areas of mutually beneficial cooperation. Speakers were: 1) Sciences, Technology and Innovation in China: From Fundamental Research to Industrialisation, Chunli Bai, Chinese Academy of Sciences 2) Collaboration The Answer to Sustainable Manufacturing, Robert Kiggans, SCRA 3) Commercialisation of nanotechnologies in Russia promoted by RUSNANO, Sergey Kalyuzhnyi, RUSNANO 4) Will the Success Story of Korea be continued? - New challenges and the needs for global cooperation, Sang-il Park, Park Systems Corp. Plenary 5, Industrial Technologies Declaration Horizon 2020 is a key instrument of the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at enhancing Europe's global competitiveness. The speakers of this session highlighted the key topics which need to be focused on regarding the Horizon 2020. The priorities included excellent knowledge, industrial leadership, societal challenges, restoration of the cooperative attitude of European companies and the conversion of research results into economic success by means of efficient collaboration between research providers and industry stimulated by government support. As modern manufacturing generates high added value and thus wealth, the prosperity in manufacturing was claimed to be crucial to sustainability of Europe. It has also been stressed that in order to deal with the challenges faced, EU will require certain efforts from many different partners in the European societies which all together can make EU more competitive and sustainable. Exhibition As a separate part, Spinverse organized a 3-day exhibition in line with the Industrial Technologies 2012 event theme targeting EU projects, RTOs, TTOs, industry, SMEs, Spin-ofs and associations. Exhibitors were identified from contacting over 5000 contacts. The process of marketing the exhibition was: Data-mining a list of all potential projects, companies, associations etc., and contact details Sending e-mail to project coordinators/sales managers/ CTOs etc. marketing the exhibition Following-up the contacts and negotiating the deals with the exhibitors The PCO KongresKompagniet handled the contracts and invoicing of the exhibitors Expanding the abovementioned marketing activities to other EU project categories relevant to Industrial technologies (energy, environment, SME) Exhibitors had the opportunity to demonstrate their products or technical capabilities and raise visibility not only to leading research institutes, key industrial actors and high-tech SMEs, but also to a selected media audience. Exhibition results The venue space posed a challenge to the allocation of the stands, as there was no option to keep all of them on one floor. For future events, it is recommendable to keep all exhibition stands on one floor and thus, consider this fact in the evaluation of suitable venues. Nevertheless, the technological area was sold out and the industrial one had only few stands left. In total, 61 stands were sold. On an area of 440m2, 95 organizations and co-exhibitors showcased their projects, technologies and research results. A highlight was the ManTra truck, a travelling exhibition from the University of Sheffield AMRC with Boeing, which was parked in front of the venue and also available to the public. MANTRA is a customised 14m HGV trailer, designed to give aspiring young engineers a hands-on experience with real cutting-edge technologies. The feedback during the event and after was that the coordination and organization of the exhibition was very smooth for the exhibitors. On the other hand, attendees found the exhibition to be an important part of the conference and perceived it as interesting and good opportunity to network. The figure below shows the reasons participating at the Industrial Technologies 2012 exhibition. Presenting own technologies received 44 answers. On rank two with 35 votes is the seeking for industrial partners, followed by seeking research partner with 34 votes. Partners for EU projects were an important factor for participation for 30 exhibitors. 22 exhibitors were expecting to find new technologies, 10 seek for funding and 5 exhibitors planned on launching a new product at the event. Poster Session Industrial Technologies 2012 has had a 2-day poster session, giving visibility to innovative research in the field of Industrial Technologies. Over 120 posters have been submitted with contributions in line with the main themes of the event, including nanotechnology, advanced materials and production research. Matchmaking Enterprise Europe Network helped organise a matchmaking event based on 1:1 meetings with potential business partners in Industrial Technologies 2012. The event was open for all participants in the congress. The networking event targeted a wide spectrum of companies, universities and researchers from Europe interested in sharing new project ideas and finding collaboration partners. Main topics covered were nanotechnology, new materials and new production technologies. The main incentives for people to take part in the event were to find funding for products or research, to find industrial or academic partners or to facilitate the setup of EU project consortia. Best Project and Award Gala Finalist Videos Over 900 NMP projects have been launched under Framework Programmes 5, 6 and 7. Industrial Technologies 2012 sought to identify and celebrate the very best of these. The Best Project Award was given to the project which, in the eyes of the gala attendees, had demonstrated the greatest economic and societal impact, boosting European competitiveness by creating new products and processes. The Best Project Award was given during the Award Gala on Wednesday 20th June. The 10 finalists were selected by the steering group of the event, all of whom were given the chance to present a brief outline of their project and its achievements in a video and on stage during the gala evening. The winner was then chosen by a vote from amongst the gala attendees. Award Gala For the conference, a gala evening was planned on Wednesday, 20th of June 2012 that took place in the Scandinavian Congress Center right next to the conference venue. The main focus during the evening was on the Best Project Award 2012. The EU-funded project finalists presented their video and introduce their project to the audience with the goal of highlighting the importance of European research and its impact on Europe's growth and competitiveness. Dissemination Activities The Industrial Technologies 2012 website received 41 453 visitors since its launch on 03.10.2011 with 152.376 page views from 131 countries. Only between 01st of April and 22nd of June 2012, the website had 22.542 visits with 82.050 page views and 629 pages in total linking in to http://www.industrialtechnologies2012.eu The twitter account IndustryTech_12 had over 290 followers. A Facebook page was opened as well however did not experience significant traffic due to the fact that this event is more B2B-focused rather than B2C. A major focus was put on newsletter marketing through own and qualified partner channels. Industrial Technologies Declaration One of the biggest dissemination activities in terms of significance for Europe was the signing of the Industrial Technologies Declaration. Discussions took place between the different stakeholders with the outcome of the Public-Private Partnerships joining forces with the public sector to significantly contribute to European recovery and to address the challenges facing European society. This commitment was signed by the representatives of the PPPs EFFRA, E2B, European Green Cars Initiative and SPIRE; and endorsed by E-MRS, FEMS and EUMAT. This document was handed to Mr. von Bose on Wednesday 21st of June during the Industrial Technologies 2012 conference. Project website: http://www.industrialtechnologies2012.eu Related documents Final Report - INDUSTRYTECH2012 (Industrial Technologies conference 2012)
