Teaching Factories Competition 2025 Call for industrial challenge owners
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Teaching Factories Competition 2025: Call for industrial challenge owners
EIT Manufacturing invites industrial challenge owners to propose relevant industrial challenges for higher education and vocational education and training (VET) students to form Solver Teams (4-6 members) and ideate solutions to those challenges.
The Teaching Factories Competition is a collaborative initiative bringing together corporates and academia across Europe through business challenges. By fostering academia-industry partnerships, the Teaching Factories Competition aims to foster the development of dynamic solutions to industrial challenges.
Please note, there will be two calls for Solver Teams that will open on 7 March (First Cohort) and 18 April 2025 (Second Cohort). Learn more here.
Submit industry challenges for students to tackle!
Industrial challenge owners are encouraged to submit up to three pressing challenges in the manufacturing industry.
Thematic scope
Industrial challenge owners are invited to frame manufacturing challenges addressing the following topics:
- Advanced Manufacturing: Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, Human-Machine Interface, Robotics & Automation.
- Green and Sustainable Manufacturing: Circular Economy, Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Zero Defect Manufacturing.
- Digital Transformation in Manufacturing: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Smart & Intelligent Manufacturing, Advanced Simulation & Digital Twin Technology, Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain Technology, Big Data Analytics, Web 3.0 & Metaverse.
Industrial challenge owners are invited to submit up to three challenges from different subtopic categories and benefit from a new perspective of students joining forces to create novel solutions.
Benefits for participating
Tailored solutions: Access to innovative ideas to tackle your challenges.
Talent discovery: Meet top talent and engage with potential employees.
Networking: Connect with diverse participants to exchange ideas and form valuable partnerships, expand the network with the EIT Manufacturing ecosystem.
Increased visibility: Showcase your brand and attract customers, investors and partners to unlock new business opportunities.
Courtesy rewards: Receive courtesy tickets to an EIT Manufacturing event or access to training courses from the EIT Manufacturing catalogue.
Who can apply
To be eligible for the call the industrial challenge owners should meet the following criteria:
- Must be a private organisation in the manufacturing sector that proposes an industrial innovation challenge within the thematic scope of this call. Industrial challenge owners must be recognised as legal entities under national, EU, or international law, with the ability to exercise rights and obligations in their name.
- Must be established in one of the Member States (including overseas countries and territories, (OCTs)) or Associated Countries to Horizon Europe.
- The challenge shall align with the selected topic and the EIT Manufacturing Strategic Agenda promoting innovative developments in the manufacturing industry.
Key dates
Application process is divided into two cut-offs:
- Call opens: 16 December 2024, 12:00 CET
- Info Session (online): 16 January 2025, 12:00-13:00 CET. You can watch the recording of the session here (please register on the AGORA platform to access the video).
- Info Session (online): 13 February 2025, 12:00-13:00 CET
- Call closes – 1st cut-off: 26 February 2025, 17:00 CET
- Eligibility & admissibility check – 1st cut-off: 28 February 2025, 17:00 CET
- Feedback – 1st cut-off: by 6 March 2025
- Publication of challenges – 1st cut-off: 7 March 2025
Great news for industrial challenge owners! You now have the opportunity to submit your challenges for the Teaching Factories Competition until 7 April 2025, 17:00 CET. Please note that your challenges may be selected by Solver Teams in the second cohort of the implementation phase (18 September – 5 December 2025).
- Info Session (online): 21 March 2025, 12:00-13:00 CET. Register here
- Call closes – 2nd cut-off: 7 April 2025, 17:00 CET
- Eligibility & admissibility check – 2nd cut-off: 8 April 2025
- Feedback – 2nd cut-off: by 15 April 2025
- Publication of challenges – 2nd cut-off: 18 April 2025
The competition is divided into two stages:
- Stage 1 – Application phase: collection of the challenges and identification of the high-potential Solver Teams.
- Stage 2 – Competition phase: EIT Manufacturing provides training and coaching to support Solver Teams in developing solutions for proposed company challenges.
The competition ends with a pitch session, where an independent jury selects the winning teams.
Documents to take into consideration
Documents to be submitted
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