Integrating EU advanced manufacturing research

Manufacturing research within the EU tends to be fragmented with work being conducted by many organisations in an uncoordinated way. This results in duplication of resources and efforts and of funding for research at regional, national and EU levels. Networks of Excellence (NoEs) are a new 'instrument' introduced into the Framework Six Programme (FP6) by the European Commission to overcome fragmentation of European research. This article gives examples of two NoEs coordinated by the Manufacturing Engineering Centre at Cardiff University to help integrate EU research in advanced manufacturing. The I*PROMS NoE contributes to this goal by strengthening the European research base in the umbrella area of Innovative Production Machines and Systems. The 4M NoE in multi-material micro manufacture integrates facilities and creates synergistic links to on-going R&D programmes to develop micro and nano manufacturing technologies (MNT) for the batch-manufacture of micro-components and devices in a variety of materials