CC ACT - Competence Center for Advanced Control Technologies

Project duration

2011 - 2014

Project Category

SLO

Contact Information

prof. dr. Mitjan Kalin

Partners

  • Institut Jožef Stefan (Slovenia)
  • INEA (Slovenia)
  • Litostroj Power (Slovenia)

The proposed CCACT will significantly contribute to the achievement of strategic development goals stated in the national strategic documents. This will be achieved due to CCACT operation strategy and work organisation, as well as due to its technical topic and innovations of particular projects.

Strategy of the development of Slovenia and the Reform programme for achieving the Lisbon strategy goals in Slovenia for the 2008-2010 period.

CCACT with its activity fully supports the two key priorities of the Slovenian development strategy. These two priorities are defined in the Reform programme for achieving the Lisbon Strategy goals in Slovenia for the 2008-2010 period.

The first development priority is the “Competitive economy and faster economic growth”. In the field of this priority the CCACT will have an important influence on enhancement of service capability in the high-tech field of automation and informatisation, as all the leading Slovenian service companies in this field are included in the centre. The experiences of past CoEACT operation have shown that the cooperation on common projects contributes to linking and integration of competitors. Furthermore, the relationships between the service companies and service end-user companies are additionally strengthened. We estimate that the inclusion of new companies into CC will enhance and fortify the cooperation. A key contribution to the first development priority, envisaged in the competence centre programme, will be the development of an innovative environment.

The second development priority is “Efficient knowledge generation, bidirectional flow and use of knowledge for economic development and quality employment positions”. In the context of this development priority the CCACT will mainly contribute to the achievement of the goal of increasing of economic efficiency. This is due to the integration of academic and entrepreneurial sphere in the field where it is proven that investments in technological development are highly cost-effective and increase added value to products and services. The CCACT programme will contribute to the achievement of the “Improvement of quality of education and incentive of lifelong learning” goal with improvement of university and higher education programmes by new skills, obtained within the centre projects. This is of special importance since the researchers/educators cover the majority of the corresponding contents in three Slovenian universities and several higher education institutions. Furthermore, the contribution to lifelong learning with envisaged upgrading of already established courses for experts from industry will be very valuable. The influence of companies on preparation and execution of educational programmes will be strengthened.

Resolution about National research and development programme for the 2006 – 2010 period (ReNRDRP).

The CCACT programme is fully compliant with the goals and guidelines given by the Resolution about National research and development programme for the 2006 – 2010 period. Furthermore, the field of control technology, whose main actors are participating in the CCACT, is classified as a priority technology under the title “Complex systems and innovative technologies (including process control technologies)”.  Investment in “Complex systems and innovative process control technologies: In particular process informatics, development of systems for creation of new products, control of complex systems and processes, fault detection and automatic quality control, remote, and distributed control, modern tools and building blocks for control systems, automation of machines and devices, computerised management of products through entire lifecycle” is specially mentioned. The listed contents are included in the programme of the proposed competence centre and represent an upgrade and continuity of past activities of our centre of excellence.

The CCACT strategic development programme is embedded into the process of the evolution of the national strategy, which was designed within the Competitiveness Council and represents an intersection between the NRDP and the programme guidelines of the technology platforms.

Operative programme for strengthening of regional development programmes for the period 2007-2013, particularly the goals of the 1st development priority “Competitive strength of the companies and research excellence” and priority guidelines 1.1 “Improvement of competitive strength of the companies and research excellence”.

Regarding the compliance with the goals of the Operational programme for strengthening regional development potentials for period 2007 – 2013, the CCACT activity will directly support the “Competitive strength of the companies and research excellence” priority. The main contribution of the activity will have an influence on the effect indicators (such as the number of research projects in the CC and the number of SMEs projects), on the result indicators (such as the number of innovations and patents and the number of newly created high qualified positions of employment), and to the indicator of influence, which reflects increase of added value. Low added value is one of the main problems of Slovenian economy.

Europe 2020

The European commission has published a communication Europe 2020, in which it suggests a renewal of the Lisbon strategy regarding the EU priorities. According to the Commission, the EU puts forward three priorities that should be achieved by the year 2020: (i) Smart growth, (ii) sustainable growth and (iii) including growth, which has to be reflected by the achievement of the five goals, approved in the spring and June European Council 2010.

In the framework of its projects, the CCACT will primarily contribute to the achievement of the goals in the priority area “Innovation Union”, with accelerated development of new innovative products, in the area “Resource efficient Europe”, since a part of the developed products and technologies will contribute to efficient use of energy and environmental contamination reduction; and “An industrial policy for the globalisation era”, since SMEs participating in the centre will be strengthened and become globally more competitive.

Slovenian Exit Strategy 2010-2013

The goal of the Exit Strategy is a long-term sustainable economic growth, which will be attained with economic policy measures, structural measures and institutional adaptations. In this regard, the CCACT will contribute to the implementation of priority measures and projects for achievement of development goals in the framework of economic policy.

A key contribution is expected in the field of the “Entrepreneurship and knowledge for development” measure. R&D projects, whose implementation is envisaged within the CCACT framework are derived from top performance research and are based on technological and market potential of the interested companies. For that reason, new products, technologies, and services will contribute to an increase of added value and competitive strength of the companies. Considering the fact that the products will belong to the area of production automation and computerisation, we can expect a multiplication effect.

The results of the CCACT activity will partially contribute to the realisation of the “Flexicurity and social cohesion” measure, with the implementation of lifelong learning, mentioned in section a), which will contribute to a more efficient employability of senior workforce.

Indirect effects of the CCACT project realisation are expected in the field of energetic infrastructure, which will be improved in the framework of the “Development traffic and energetic infrastructure” measure. The main contribution will be made by the results of the projects related to new services and products in the field of remote, distributed, and web control and optimisation and control in the field of energy and environment.