IK4-Ideko ended 2011 with significantly more collaboration with other companies

  Achieving a 7.7 million euro income from R&D&I projects,IK4-Ideko ended 2011 with significantly more collaboration with other companies,

 2011 has been especially notable for the IK4-Ideko Technological Centre at Elgoibar, a technology centre that specialises in industrial manufacturing and production technologies, and whose mission is to contribute to the sustainable development of an innovative and competitive business environment. We have managed to keep the upward trend, and it may be said that, bearing in mind the current crisis situation, this is quite an achievement. The technological centre obtained in its 25th anniversary year an increase in the total business turnover of 5%, with a total income of 7.7 million Euros from projects. Of this amount, 5.1 million has come from R&D projects under contract with companies, and 2.5 million from research projects with the support of various institutions.

The current situation makes it more necessary than ever to translate R&D advances in results so that the new technologies sustain the competiveness of our companies as a differentiating factor. . Aware of this situation, and more committed than ever to the development of our socio-business environment, IK4-Ideko has undertaken several performance lines in our 25th anniversary year, with an ever-present focus on results.

In the research field, the 107 workers that make up the staff at IK4-Ideko have contributed to its international development through 13 active European projects, the Technological Centre participating as leader in 5 of them. Our favourable international positioning in Manufacturing Technologies, backed up by our presence in the CIRP and EUSPEN, enabled us to attract professionals of the highest standing in the academic world to the technological conferences that we held last October for our 25th Anniversary. At the conferences, we had the pleasure of getting together with representatives of the academic world and industry in a space for the debate on the future of manufacturing technologies.

The work carried out in the research field has been complemented by the hard work to transfer results to the socio-business environment through projects required by industry. In 2011, IK4-Ideko established R&D collaboration agreements for amounts around 2 million Euros with four leading companies in the Machine Tool and Manufacturing Technologies area, with a clear specialisation focus on the sector in two of the cases.         

Finally, the activity for exploitation of research results should be mentioned, and the accompanying of companies in new diversification processes that we are carrying out at IK4-Ideko. As a first result, it has enabled companies in the manufacturing sector to make greater inroads into the health sector through new technological developments supported by their experience and training in mechatronics.