ITMA 2011 to focus on Research and Education sector

15 Jun '10

4 min read

ITMA, the world's largest and most established textile machinery exhibition, has put a bigger spotlight on research and development, as well as education and training; a pavilion will be organised for research institutes and higher institutions of learning to showcase their projects, capabilities and programmes.

The Research & Education (R&E) pavilion will be a major feature at next year's ITMA exhibition, which will be held at the Fira de Barcelona Gran Vía venue in Barcelona, Spain from 22 to 29 September 2011. It is one of a range of initiatives by the show owner, CEMATEX (Comité Européen des Constructeurs de Machines Textiles), to ensure the sustainable development of the textile and garment industry.

According to Jeroen Vits, Secretary General of SYMATEX (Belgium) and Chairman of the ITMA 2011 R&E Committee, the key to creating the industry's sustainable development is through research and development, and education and training.

He commented, “We believe that businesses must continue to invest in developing innovative processes, products, and manufacturing capabilities. In addition, human capital must be developed to the fullest. There must be more dialogue and cross-fertilisation of ideas between commercial and academic organisations to encourage synergistic collaboration, and to ensure a continuous stream of new ideas and innovations.

“ITMA 2011 will be an excellent platform for exploring strategic partnerships, exchange of ideas, and networking. We hope more organisations will take up this opportunity to showcase or share their expertise and projects, as we will have well over 100,000 exhibitor and visitor personnel converging at our exhibition.”

AUTEX, the Association of Universities for Textiles, which has 32 members from 24 countries, is in support of ITMA's focus. The association's vision is to facilitate co-operation amongst members in high-level textile education and research.

Its General Secretary, Prof Paul Kiekens, of AUTEX, commented: “As the voice of the European textile universities, AUTEX promotes and participates in research & development and education projects which bring added value to the textiles industry at the European level.

“We see positive synergies with ITMA, which has been held in Europe for six decades. Hence, we believe the exhibition with its focus on the Research and Education sector is an excellent platform for constructive dialogue between universities and industry members and we are very pleased to support it.”

Among them are the Institut für Textil- und Verfahrenstechnik Denkendorf (ITV-Denkendorf) and the Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University (ITA), Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM and Cetex Institut für Textil- und Verarbeitungsmaschinen gemeinnützige GmbH from Germany; D.K.T.E. Society's Textile & Engineering Institute from India; and Instituto Tecnológico Textil (AITEX) and Institut D'investigació Tèxtil I Cooperació Industrial de Terrassa-UPC from Spain.

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