Science market, projects, discussions: On Wednesday, five universities from the trinational Upper Rhine region presented a series of forward-looking, partly cross-border research activities and competences in the field of "Industry 4.0" on the Offenburg University campus.
In front of a total of 72 participants of the event, University Rector Winfried Lieber was "deeply impressed by the range of topics presented". These would reflect the location advantage on the Upper Rhine: "Here partners from three countries manage to sharpen and further develop a highly complex topic in joint projects.
The application-oriented universities are "guarantors of innovative strength". This was particularly true of the large number of research projects in cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises in the region, Lieber emphasised to the assembled representatives from universities, industry and industrial associations.
"Exchange in the Upper Rhine region is on the move," summarised Nathalie Gartiser from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA" in Strasbourg: "However, both in research and education we need to focus even more on the requirements of industry 4.0 - to make the transition to the digital world easier for small and medium-sized enterprises.
"Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular urgently need intelligent, digital production processes in order not to be left behind in the future," said District President Bärbel Schäfer. As part of the INTERREG project "UpperRhine 4.0 - Trinational Competence Network Industry 4.0", the partner universities from north-western Switzerland, France and Germany presented their current developments and projects from all areas of industry 4.0, the core aim of which is to prepare small and medium-sized enterprises in the region for the transition to industry 4.0. Schäfer underlined the importance of the Interreg project for the region: "The event on Wednesday illustrates the advantages of European integration by means of concrete and above all practice-relevant projects, said Schäfer.
In the face of right-wing populism and increasing scepticism about Europe, she emphasised: "Only Europe makes such projects possible. What the project partners had set up clearly showed that "together with Europe we are better than alone. Border regions in particular have no disadvantages for Europe, they benefit from the Community." The Interreg programme has brought a total of 110 million euros to the region for cross-border projects: "Such successes must be made more visible to the public.
In the Upper Rhine region, there is a particularly high density of scientific players in a relatively small area. In addition, the region has an above-average economic strength of around 245 million euros. Cross-border projects and cooperations, such as those seen in Offenburg on Wednesday, would reflect this enormous potential.
There was a lot of activity on the market place with information stands. In the foyer of the D building, scientific projects of the universities of applied sciences of Offenburg, Karlsruhe and Furtwangen as well as the University of Applied Sciencesof Northwestern Switzerland and INSA Strasbourg were presented. The Alliance of Universities of Applied Sciences on the Upper Rhine, TriRhenaTech, also presented cross-border projects of the participating universities.
"Today we made good use of the opportunity for exchange," summarised Vasco Brummer, research coordinator at the Institute for Applied Research (IAF) at Offenburg University. "The great exhibits made it possible to convey applied research very vividly, especially in the direction of politics. In addition, the participants had made intensive use of the opportunity to establish networks: "New ideas for joint projects have already been spun.
Offenburg University, for example, presented two concrete joint projects with INSA from Strasbourg: the research project "Virtual Factory Planning" and "Endurance Low Cost Drone". In addition, Offenburg University presented the following projects: Secure communication solutions for industry 4.0, networked production through MES, intelligent injection molding, additive manufacturing and rapid tooling, machine learning and data analytics, autonomous driving, data and robotics, digital printing processes for ceramic inks.
In addition to the joint project "Endurance Low Cost Drone", INSA Strasbourg presented the topics "The digital twin" and "Kobotics in production". The contribution "Highly Available Smart Factories in the Cloud" was made by Furtwangen University of Applied Sciences; Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz was on site in Offenburg with the projects "Industrie 4.0 at the FHNW" and "Cyber Physische Systeme CPS in der Gießerei-Industrie". Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences presented an "automated professor", the TriRhenaTech merger presented the pipe crawler and other cross-border student projects.