On the sofa with… Teresa Hernández, Innovation Manager, EIT Manufacturing West

Advanced Manufacturing – You have been a speaker at the round table on industrial projects at European level, what conclusions would you highlight?

Teresa Hernández – Well, it was a very interesting round table with the participation of three speakers who are involved in innovation projects with us. One was Javier, who comes from Linq, another was Joseba, who comes from Mondragón and Arsenio, who comes from Grupo Oesia. Each of them are involved in different projects and we have been talking a little bit about these projects and the benefits, challenges and advice they would give to someone who wanted to apply for a European collaborative project.

In summary, there are many benefits, of course, when participating in these projects, because you have investment, you have the facility to connect with organizations that otherwise you could not connect with and you have the support of the entire EIT Manufacturing organization. So that helps large and not so large organizations to carry out this type of projects all together.

To put it from another point of view, the challenges that are encountered, many times these have to do with how to get all the companies that collaborate in these projects to have the same objective and in one step have the same ambition and that all are aligned for the achievement of the collective objective. But, in general, what we observe is that almost all of them, after a small period of adjustment at the beginning of the project, end up working very well.

Then, as a piece of advice, from what the participants commented, I would like to keep this idea of clarity. That is, to have clear from the very beginning the objectives of the project, what we want to achieve and what role each of these collaborators is going to have. Because that ensures that the project will have a high probability of developing in an adequate manner and will be successful.

AM – What is the current state of the industry in terms of international collaboration?

T. Hernández – I think this should grow, that is, there are already many organizations participating in this type of projects, but the ambition is that this continues to grow.

Right now in EIT Manufacturing, we have approximately 160 partners, but we would like there to be many more, that there were more companies involved in the development of these innovation projects that can take Europe to a higher level in the field of manufacturing. We are doing well, but ideally there should be more, and above all, as I am in charge of Spain, France and Portugal as a region, I would like there to be many more Spanish companies participating in this project.