368
Views
3
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

Four years of ‘Factories of the Future’ in Europe: achievements and outlook

Pages 15-22 | Received 12 Jan 2015, Accepted 20 Apr 2015, Published online: 14 May 2015
 

Abstract

In November 2008, at the peak of the financial and economic crisis, the European Commission made a bold proposal, namely to support Europe’s competitiveness in key industrial sectors through research and innovation in public–private partnerships. One of these initiatives, ‘Factories of the Future’, was launched with the aim to improve European manufacturing enterprises’ technological capability in adapting to environmental pressures and in adequately responding to increasing global consumer demand for greener, more customised and higher quality products. Five years on, what are the results of these efforts? The paper tries to put into a historic perspective the efforts of the European Commission to facilitate more networking and innovation within the research community, a stimulation of industrial involvement and investment in research and innovation, as well as to underpin these efforts through targeted policies.

Acknowledgement

The views outlined here are the views of the author alone and do not reflect the official position of the European Commission on this matter.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 61.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 528.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.