Brussels, 04/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 3 June, the European Commission and 180 companies and research organisations (under the umbrella of euRobotics) launched the world's largest civilian research and innovation programme in robotics. Covering manufacturing, agriculture, health, transport, civil security and households, the initiative - called SPARC - is the EU's industrial policy effort to strengthen Europe's position in the global robotics market (€60 billion a year by 2020). This initiative is expected to create over 240,000 jobs in Europe, and increase Europe's share of the global market to 42% (a boost of €4 billion per year). The European Commission will invest €700 million and euRobotics €2.1 billion.
As pointed out by Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes, robotics is crucial to the European economy because it enables companies to keep some of their business activities from going outside the EU to where labour is cheaper. The commissioner added that “Europe needs to be a producer and not merely a consumer of robots. Robots do much more than replace humans - they often do things humans can't or won't do and that improves everything from our quality of life to our safety”. President of euRobotics Bernd Liepert added: “SPARC will ensure the competitiveness of European robotics industries. Robot-based automation solutions are essential to overcome today's most pressing societal challenges - from demographic change to mobility to sustainable production”.
SPARC was launched at the AUTOMATICA 2014 conference in Munich and is open to all European companies and research bodies. It is the result of a partnership concluded with the non-profit-making company euRobotics on 13 December 2013 and is an essential part of the new European Horizon 2020 research programme. The next call for funding will be published in October 2014 and will close in April the following year. (IL)