What a Christmas present! Right before the end of the year, on December 20, 2019, the Robotix-Academy was informed that the INTERREG authority has approved the application for the extension and increase of the project.
The Steering Committee of the INTERREG V A Greater Region program informed the project consortium that the submitted application has been positively decided and the Academy can now continue its successful work – for another 18 months beyond 2020 and with an additional 30% of the original budget.
The new funding decision for the Robotix-Academy thus provides for a budget of €9.1 million and an ERDF of €5.46 million. All funded and associated project partners remain on board to further expand and consolidate the cross-border research cluster for industrial robotics. The previous project actions will be continued and supplemented by new topics and target groups.
In the first project phase (2016-2020), the Robotix-Academy was able to successfully work on all previous actions and establish itself as a brand. So, today, the Academy is a one-stop partner for the topic of industrial robotics with a wide range of offers: more than 100 industrial companies have already benefited from this and about 15 additional cooperations with European research institutions have been established.
In exchange with the companies, further topics could be identified, which will be worked on together with the project partners in the second project phase (2021-06/2022). These include the topics of mobile and networked robots (logistics), autonomous robot functions and AI, and soft robotics and exoskeletons (healthcare).
In addition, the Robotix-Academy would like to target young technical talent more specifically and address pupils in vocational orientation (grade 10). Information days, workshops and hands-on activities are designed to give pupils an opportunity to experience technology and get them excited about new technologies. In this way, the Greater Region can ensure its workforce potential and thus remain attractive for companies.