SPARC - the world's largest civilian robotics programme

03 June 2014
by eub2 -- last modified 03 June 2014

The European Commission and 180 companies and research organisations (under the umbrella of euRobotics) launch on 3 June 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).

The 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.

Robotics enables companies to continue manufacturing in Europe, where they might otherwise move operations to lower-cost countries. But the potential of robotics goes far beyond the factory: from helping nurses in hospitals to inspecting dangerous power plants and tedious farm work. Autonomous cars and drones are other examples of robots. (see: What robots can do for you).

Background

The project is launched at the AUTOMATICA 2014 conference in Munich.

SPARC is open to all European companies and research institutions. The partnership launched today is based on a contract signed with euRobotics aisbl on 17 December 2013.

The first call for proposals related to SPARC are run under the pillar LEIT - Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies of the new EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 #H2020.

The next funding call will be published in October 2014 with an April 2015 deadline. Stay tuned via @RoboticsEU – find out more about EU support to robotics and examples of funded projects.