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Research and innovation
News article28 September 2022BrusselsDirectorate-General for Research and Innovation

Industry of the future Award winner announced

The Commission announced today that the winner of the first Industry of the Future Award is the project RAMP-PV. The award recognises EU-funded projects whose results make European industry more resilient, sustainable, and human-centric.

RAMP-PV has developed a green recycling process to up-cycle high quality raw materials (such as silicon and silver) from industrially generated photo-voltaic waste. In addition to the environmental benefits, the project helps reduce the dependence of European industry on raw materials and also aims to minimise the health-related risks for its workers.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

We need champions of change and innovation for our industry to continue bringing prosperity for all Europeans. Companies that help to reinvent ourselves are working for a more secure future. Developing new solutions that save raw materials could not come at a better time.

The runners up are:

SECOIIA focuses on cybersecurity, which is an important component of industry’s resilience in the digital age. The project develops solutions for data-driven circular economic business models. It contributes to workers’ health, safety and wellbeing by demonstrating safe and secure human-robot interactions in non-segregated spaces.

SHERLOCK develops human-centric solutions by improving working conditions and ergonomics, reducing physical and cognitive load, thereby increasing the attractiveness of industry. It reduces the environmental footprint of the production process by increasing efficiency and reducing waste. The project develops collaborative robots that can be reconfigured, which leads to greater flexibility, and therefore resilience.

In total nearly 60 applications were evaluated by a high-level independent jury from industry, civil society, social partners, and academia.

Background

The Industry of the Future Award aims to highlight EU-funded projects whose results make European industry more resilient, sustainable, and human-centric. It contributes to raising awareness, taking stock of the implementation of Industry of the Future in research and innovation programmes, and developing the framework moving forward. The award has been prepared in collaboration with European Factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA) and industrial platform ManuFUTURE. To be eligible, projects must have had obtained funding from Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe or the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, the start date of the project must be after 31 August 2018, and the projects should clearly be applicable in industry.

Industry of the Future provides a vision of European industry as an engine for systemic transformation. It aims to achieve societal goals beyond jobs and growth, to become a resilient provider of prosperity that can anticipate future challenges, by making production more sustainable and placing the wellbeing of the industry worker at the centre of the production process.

More information

Industry of the Future award

Industry 5.0  website

 

Press contact:

EC Spokesperson for Research, Science and Innovation

Details

Publication date
28 September 2022
Author
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
Location
Brussels