Goals
The Tuscan Region has outlined, in collaboration with the FUB, a Competence Centre related to 5G and innovative technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain, with the aim of matching the skills of universities and research institutions with the needs of manufacturing companies in the Tuscan Region, in order to improve their market positioning and to benefit from digital transformations in general.
Impact
The purpose of the Competence Centre is to promote and develop projects that introduce innovative processes in manufacturing districts, due to their well-known strategic role in the regional territory. The projects’ implementation and their effective impact on the territory will mainly be based on an efficient technology transfer between the research community and companies by considering emerging technologies such as 5G, AI and Blockchain.
Description
The activities of the Competence Centre will be the following:
- Central coordination of the management and effective communication of research topics in all phases of the center’s activity.
- Consultation on Research Topics to identify which issues most meet the needs and requirements of the manufacturing companies in the area. This activity will be carried out through public consultation in the Tuscan Region.
- The evaluation and selection will be conducted of project proposals that meet the needs of the territory’s manufacturing districts. Starting from the observations that emerged during the public consultation, the research themes of the projects will be defined and indications given of which applications most correspond with the manufacturing companies’ needs. The Call for Tenders will specify that the candidate projects to be financed will be “Proof of Concept” projects, emphasizing that no basic research projects will be funded. This is to underline that the purpose of the initiative is to promote the transfer of technology and improve the competitiveness of the manufacturing districts of the Tuscany territory.
- The selected projects proposed by the main Tuscan Universities will be developed with the collaboration of at least one or more local companies and will be carried out in the Competence Centre laboratory with continuous interaction between the world of research and industry.
- The communication and dissemination of an efficient technology transfer in the manufacturing sector. To this end, several events will be planned to present the Competence Centre and the main results achieved during the selected projects. This will serve to replicate the experience gained in the Competence Centre throughout the Tuscan Region and set an example of Best Practices to meet the real needs of the Tuscan manufacturing districts.
