The Covid-19 crisis has revealed the weaknesses of our economies namely a strong interdependency and a lack of resilience. In this context, the Academy launched in May 2020 a call for research projects in order to support the development of new models or solutions that are more resilient and at the same time more sustainable for industry. This call for projects is in line with the French and German governments’ desire to find common solutions to the crisis and for the economic recovery.
The Academy selected 9 new projects addressing the following topics:
- Additive manufacturing for on-demand drug delivery systems [+] and biopolymeric multi-material parts [+],
- Collaborative, resilient and open supply chain management [+],
- Productive circular economy [+],
- Remote maintenance for industrial robots [+]
- Privacy of personal data in future crises [+],
- Ramp-up production management [+],
- Trust and transparency in ambient data collection [+],
- Human relations and digital technology in redesigned workspaces [+].
These new projects gather 50 new researchers and experts from IMT and TUM. Today, the community of the Academy encompasses in total about 150 scientists working together from the two institutions.
The call is intended to finance initial phases of projects lasting 6 to 9 months. This initial phase or “seed phase” addresses structural problems of the industry in crisis situations by identifying and developing innovative solutions with a strong potential for third party acquisition and technology transfer. The objective of the projects is to build up a knowledge base based on academic excellence and disseminate it to industrialists. This transfer is carried out through PoC (Proof of Concept), technological platforms, new methods, training courses (initial or professional).
