Development 30 percent more efficient

This project is financed by the EU Commission and the idea is that this will be a way for EU to support new, fresh ideas from researchers from both the industrial and academic worlds. This may concern the development of everything from tiny pumps in catheters for the medical industry, fuel cells for e.g. portable computers to cogwheels for the workings of clocks.

“We hope that the development process of such components will be 30 percent quicker with the help of Euminafab,” says Lars Mattsson, Professor at the KTH Department of Production Engineering.

The major advantage of Euminafab lies in cooperation and the coordinated resources i.e. that researchers are not working in different countries developing the same thing.

KTH’s participation is due to its previous successes in a project named 4M.

“Through our participation in 4M we came to the conclusion that many measuring instruments were performing very badly. KTH’s prominent role in Euminafab is consequently that of quality inspector,” states Lars Mattsson.

The actual admission process is simple. If a researcher has a good idea, this is submitted to Euminafab for assessment. After approval the researcher is free to utilise Euminafab’s resources.

It is, however, important to point out that this system may not be used for research that must be kept confidential in any manner.

“Everything is to be open, it must be possible to publish all our results,” asserts Professor Mattsson.

In addition to KTH, companies and universities in Spain, Italy, Germany, England and Holland are participating in Euminafab. Participating researchers gain access to considerable expertise within their fields as well as to an extensive, linked-up laboratory.

More information at Euminafab´s website

Peter Larsson