Inditex, MIT collaborate on sustainability challenges

23 Mar '19

3 min read

Pic: Inditex

Inditex and MIT are collaborating to promote research in global sustainability challenges and data analysis applied to business. The two have signed an agreement in this connection. Under the partnership, Inditex will contribute over $4 million to multi-year research projects. It also renews annual scholarship programme for MIT students at Inditex.

The agreement focuses on four key areas. It supports MIT research with the creation of two new Inditex fellowships in sustainability and operations. The Inditex Materials Science and Engineering Fellowship Fund within the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering will receive $1 million from Inditex to promote research into the areas of sustainability, logistics, and supply chain management. The aim of this fellowship is to pursue pioneering initiatives in the circular economy and in the application of advanced sustainability techniques within the textiles industry. The Inditex Operations Research and Management Fellowship Fund within the MIT Sloan School of Management will receive $1 million in funding from Inditex to foster research and innovation in data analysis and prescriptive and predictive models applied to the textiles industry.

Inditex will also join the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society to further research in areas such as artificial intelligence, automated learning, and data science with a multi-year contribution of $1.2 million.

The agreement means renewal of the Leaders for Global Operations Master (LGO), Inditex’s scholarship programme for MIT students, backed by the MIT School of Engineering and the MIT Sloan School of Management. The programme fosters the enhancement of technical and management skills through personalised and supervised educational experiences at Inditex's headquarters in Arteixo, Spain.

It also focuses on the launch of a new round of the MIT-Spain Inditex Sustainability Seed fund for the promotion of research initiatives between faculty members and students from MIT and their peers at universities and research institutions in Spain. The fund focuses on areas such as new textile recycling techniques and the creation of new fibres using sustainable technology, and is endowed with $450,000 over three-years.

During the first round of the MIT-Spain Inditex Sustainability Seed fund, pioneering projects regarding the separation of the subsequent recycling of fibres were selected from the universities of Vigo, Granada, the Basque region, and the Polytechnic School of Valencia. The new round of seed funding will select five new research initiatives that align with Inditex's Global Sustainability Strategy with the aim of identifying innovative solutions in areas such as upcycling, recycling, ecological fabrics, clean energies, and manufacturing and logistics eco-efficiency.

In addition to its agreement with MIT, Inditex is currently actively involved in educational projects with the University of La Coruña, University of Santiago de Compostela, and University Pontificia de Comillas. (SV)

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