EIT Manufacturing

Funder: European Institute of Innovation and Technology

I-Form Investigator: Denis Dowling, UCD

For more information please contact the I-Form Grants Manager Sophie O'Kelly.

EIT Manufacturing is a consortium of 50 partners across 17 countries and links industry, research technological organisations and universities across Europe. Its vision is that global manufacturing innovation is led by Europe. EIT Manufacturing’s mission is to “bring European manufacturing actors together in innovation ecosystems that add unique value to European products, processes, services – and inspire the creation of globally competitive and sustainable manufacturing”.

I-Form, via UCD, is leading the Irish involvement, playing a role in the Education, Innovation and Business Creation Pillars of EIT Manufacturing’s strategy. I-Form researchers have been or are involved in various education projects, including set-up of a learning factory to upskill existing industry operators, the creation of educational "nuggets" (pieces of educative materials likely to be consumed in no more than 15 minutes, to be accessed on the EIT Manufacturing Guided Learning Platform) on additive manufacturing and the design of a "factory in a box" dedicated to second-level student education. Discover the projects funded by EIT Manufacturing  here.

Advanced Metallic Systems Centre for Doctoral Training

I-Form Investigators: Dermot Brabazon, David Kinahan, Nicholas Dunne, Mercedes Vazquez (DCU), Denis Dowling, Eoin O'Cearbhaill, Philip Cardiff, Mert Celikin (UCD)

For more information please contact the AMSCDT Centre Manager Joan Kelly.

I-Form's Dublin City University and University College Dublin have partnered with University of Sheffield and University of Manchester to launch a joint PhD programme in Metallurgical Challenges for the Digital Manufacturing Environment. The programme is supported by a €4 million investment from Science Foundation Ireland and will see 25 PhD students recruited over the next five years to focus on metallic materials innovation in high added value manufacturing.

They will join a cohort of 70 students in the UK in both Sheffield and Manchester Universities. The awards have been made under a new partnership between Science Foundation Ireland and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation.  The Centres for Doctoral Training will bring together a group of PhD students from diverse backgrounds to tackle today's evolving issues and future challenges in an exciting environment, linked with industry and supporting broad skills development in areas such as responsible innovation, leadership, science in the media and industrial training.

Each year a new cohort intake of 5 PhD students will be recruited for a September start in either DCU or UCD.  Check our Vacancies section for further information.

Industry partners can sponsor a PhD student by making a small contribution towards the cost of the programme. In collaboration with the supervisor, the company can define the research area for the PhD based on their area of interest.

Innovation Eco-system to Accelerate the Industrial Uptake of Advanced Surface Nano-Technologies (NEWSKIN)

I-Form Investigators: David Kinahan and Dermot Brabazon, DCU

Key Enabling Technologies (KET´s) deployment will be the driving force for a significant part of the goods and services that will be available in the market in the next decade. Amongst KET´s, nano-enabled surfaces and membranes must be highlighted due to their huge potential to offer material solutions to address Sustainable Development Goals resulting in positive and sound impacts for the society and key industrial sectors. The NewSkin project aims to create an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB), a new legal entity which will provide the European Innovation Ecosystem with the necessary technologies, resources and services to uptake a set of game changing, efficient and cost- effective innovative processes to manufacture nano-enabled industrial and consumer products as well as the necessary testing capabilities to demonstrate nano-enhanced goods features.

Seamless and Safe Human-centred Robotic Applications for Novel Collaborative Workplaces (SHERLOCK)

I-Form Investigator: Nikos Papakostas, UCD

The SHERLOCK project introduces the latest safe robotic technologies including high payload collaborative arms, exoskeletons and mobile manipulators in diverse production environments. The modules are enhanced with smart mechatronics and AI-based cognition, conceiving efficient Human-Robot Collaboration stations that are designed to be safe and guarantee the acceptance and wellbeing of operators. In future industrial environment, robots and workers would be able to function as co-workers to bridge the performance gap through the adoption of smart systems and sensors.

Center to Center (C2C) International Collaboration on Advanced Photovoltaics: Electrode Manufacturing and Indoor Power Applications

I-Form Investigator: Dermot Brabazon, DCU

The aim of this collaboration is transformative research on advanced photovoltaic (PV) technology that greatly extends the state of the art in three major areas: 1) advanced manufacturing processes, 2) mate-rials for high performance, low cost silicon and tandem PV technology, and 3) new markets for PV in powering the internet of things (IoT) from indoor light sources.

The Northwest Centre for Advanced Manufacturing (NWCAM) / INTERREG VA Programme

I-Form Investigator: David Tormey, IT Sligo

The Northwest Centre for Advanced Manufacturing (NWCAM) is funded (€8.7m) by SEUPB Interreg VA with IT Sligo's PEM Research Centre receiving approximately €1m in research funding. The primary objective of the programme is to underpin academic collaboration across the Interreg VA regions with a focus on supporting enterprise R&D requirements within the respective regions. There are 4 thematic areas for the project, Additive Manufacturing, Sustainable Manufacturing, Advanced Polymer products and Nano-Manufacturing.

IMDEA Materials Institute and Los Alamos Labs Collaboration

I-Form Investigators: Sean Lean and Mingming Tong, NUIG

I-Form has entered into a collaboration with the IMDEA Materials Institute in Madrid, Spain to conduct research in the area of metallic microstructure evolution modelling. The team at IMDEA is led by Prof. Javier Llorca and collaborators include Dr Damien Tourret and Dr Javier Segurado. The project involves a post-doctoral researcher from NUIG spending equal amounts of time between Spain and Ireland, under the supervision of Dr Mingming Tong and Prof Seán Leen at NUIG. A further complementary partnership has been established in this area between NUIG and Dr Ricardo A. Lebensohn, Team Leader, Materials Science and Technology Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA.