Composites United (CU) and the industrial region Katowice-Gliwice Śląskie have announced a partnership to make lightweight construction an export hit together.
Jakub Chełstowski, Marshal of the Polish province of Silesia, and Prof Dr Hubert Jäger, Chairman of the Board of Composites United, based in Augsburg, declared their support for Europe as a strong lightweight construction location.
High-ranking representatives of industry and science from both countries signed declarations on intensive cooperation on January 14th in Augsburg City Hall. The first joint projects between the Polish industrial region of Katowice-Gliwice Silesia and the large Central European lightweight construction network Composites United are to follow by the end of the year.
Prof Dr Jäger's vision of a global "Technology Leadership Made in Europe" was listened to by the business and science representatives who met at the Augsburg Technology Centre (TZA). Jäger is spokesman for the executive committee of Composite United, the largest industrial network for fibre-reinforced high-performance materials in Central Europe. Jäger can well imagine an active membership of Polish companies in their own national association for mutual benefit. His guest, Jakub Chełstowski, marshal of the economically strongest Polish region Silesia, wanted to fathom the possibilities for this.
Chełstowski was accompanied by high-ranking representatives of Polish politics, science and economy. The 14-member delegation included Janusz Michałek and Małgorzata Staś, President of the Katowice Special Economic Zone and Director of the Development Department in the Marshal's Office respectively. The delegation also included Arkadiusz Mężyk, Rector of the Technical University of Silesia, several key representatives of the automotive and aviation industries, as well as Andrzej Soldaty, a representative of the Polish Ministry of Development.
The Lord Mayor of Augsburg, Dr Kurt Gribl, also took the opportunity to welcome Marshal Chełstowski and his team in the magnificent Golden Hall of the City Hall. Gribl underlined the great importance of Composites United in promoting innovative lightweight construction materials and technologies. In particular the Bavarian Leading-Edge Cluster MAI Carbon, a CU-department, had rendered outstanding services to the networking of the regionally strongly represented specialist companies, thus significantly advancing a competence centre with a supra-regional impact. Gribl expressly welcomed the fact that "this networking is now also to be made possible across borders with the representatives from Poland".
In the neighbouring Fürstenzimmer, or Prince’s Room, Prof Dr Jäger then signed a Letter of Intent on the future cooperation for the CU and representatives of the Silesian Clusters for Aviation and Automotive & Advanced Manufacturing. Representatives of the University of Augsburg and the Technical University of Silesia confirmed the same intention for the science and research sector by signing a corresponding Memorandum of Understanding.
Prof Dr Jäger expects further joint activities at the end of this year. In doing so, he can count on the experience of CU Managing Director Dr Gunnar Merz, who has already successfully advanced the internationalization of CU by establishing branches in Belgium, Korea and Japan, among others. MAI Carbon Managing Director Dr Tjark von Reden brings valuable project management know-how to the table. The two agree with Jäger and Chełstowski that "European cooperation is indispensable, especially with regard to activities in Asia". Because " if we limit ourselves to ourselves, the future takes place outside our sphere of influence".
The Polish guests were able to gather ideas for possible cooperation during several guided tours and industry visits, which were also on the agenda that day. The University of Augsburg and the Technology Center of the Innovation Park, as well as the DLR and the Fraunhofer Institute for Foundry, Composite and Processing Technology IGCV opened their doors for this purpose. The delegation members were particularly impressed by the "Virtual Factory", which can be visited in the TZA – just one of many examples of what the technological future "Made in Europe" could look like.
