GOSTOP PROGRAMME
About this good practice
The GOSTOP programme accelerated the development of the Factories of the Future (FoF) concept in Slovenia and provided solutions to the current needs of the industry. In GOSTOP, a total of 13 companies and 6 research organisations with compatible R&D programmes in the FoF concept joined forces to push forward its development. Taking into account the Smart Specialisation Strategy of Slovenia and the priorities of the FoF roadmap under Horizon 2020 prepared by the European Factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA), four areas were identified in which decisive breakthroughs could be achieved: control technologies, tooling, robotics and photonics. GOSTOP combined the majority of the horizontal fields pinpointed by the S3 for the Factories of the Future. In all these fields, the most promising research topics of interest to the Slovenian industry were determined, and synergies were identified where the knowledge required existed within Slovenian research organisations. On one hand, GOSTOP includes the development of new products and breakthrough technologies from agile SMEs. On the other hand, however, the overall FoF concept was already developed, thereby leading to integrated systems to be used by large Slovenian companies in order to optimise their production and develop new products with high added value. The success of GOSTOP contributed to raising the added value and export volume of the participating companies and Slovenian industry as a whole.
Resources needed
19 organisations (including SMEs) together employed over 1200 people. GOSTOP was financed with 9.397.732,50 EUR through different financing rates depending on the type of the institutions.
Evidence of success
The main results are:
- 38 technological achievements, which fully reflect the framework of the set goals.
- The success of the transfer of new knowledge from the research environment to industrial practice
- Going past the demonstration of prototypes to the acceleration of the commercialisation phase according to market needs.
- Joint participation of several partners in each achievement.
- In a nutshell: 17 patents, 48 commercialisation activities, 96 various events
Potential for learning or transfer
The good practice of the GOSTOP programme joined forces between 19 institutions (initially in the consortia SRIP Factories of the Future) and together developed a cooperation programme based on the capacities and knowledge of their operational fields. GOSTOP aimed to develop new technologies and approaches through partner cooperation in an interdisciplinary approach, ranging from SMEs to the research sector. It also continued cooperation even after the project completion in order to commercialise and market developed prototypes and solutions.
GOSTOP is a good practice, as the approach of building large, technology-oriented consortia with shared responsibilities is applicable to all EU regions.