Driven by Danube

Programme: DANUBE TRANSNATIONAL PROGRAMME

Project title: Driven by Danube

Coordinator: Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI)

Duration of the project: September 2018 - August 2019

Budget for a project: € 48, 867.75

Budget for Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information: € 16, 479.00

Driven by Danube is a project implemented under Seed Money Facility 1st Call of the Danube Transnational Programme. The project aims to develop a complex transnational projects to support goals of EUSDR. €. Project is co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF).

Background:

Automotive industry became the most important economic engine of many DR countries, whose problem is that however, they are a manufacturing power; they experience hardship to move towards R&D and environmentally responsible industry.
EU countries experience decline in interest of technical and engineering studies and shortage of highly experienced professionals.
The gap in development and needs of the industry for more enviro friendly solutions create a huge opportunity to catch the train of innovation leaders and move their production towards more R&D based economies.
It is required to establish research centers or hubs for studying new materials-plastics, composites that comply with technological requirements, and look for the potential reuse of waste material left from production but also after the end-of-life vehicle.
Nowadays there are dual study programs between HEIs and industry based mostly on construction and automation study programs. However, the need is also to establish common programs focused on new materials and recycling of car/vehicle waste.
Besides already existing cooperation of HEIs to big automotive producers, it is important to focus on cooperation mainly to local companies (usually SMEs) which became important actors in the supply chain. They continually search for improvement of their products but they need skilled and motivated people to join their effort.

The objective of the future project:

The aim of the main project which will be developed with support of Seed Money Facility is to close the knowledge gap caused by shortage of highly skilled and competent professionals in new materials R&D and reuse of hardly recyclable material within the automotive industry and beyond by implement elements of dual education and joint research centers.

The result of the project will be improved education curricula and research policies particularly focused on implementation of dual education, and increased competences in research management and cooperation of companies, academia, and policy makers in auto-industry.

In cooperation of: