The dinner-debate “Driving innovation forward” hosted by Members of the Parliament John Procter and Andor Deli, was attended by several other MEPs, European Commission officials and industry representatives, among others. The two winners of the CLEPA 2018 Innovation Awards – Plastic Omnium in the category Environment and Bosch in the category for Safety -- were among the speakers that highlighted the benefits of continuous investment in research and development. 

 

Innovation is crucial in the mobility sector as it contributes to sustainable and efficient transport and supports European competitiveness. Over the last years, European automotive suppliers have invested more than €22 billion per annum in innovative technologies putting them at the forefront of developments. 

 

Innovation is closing the gap to achieve society’s 2050 environmental and safety targets. Automotive suppliers support a holistic approach that rewards innovation and efficiency and brings synergies between technologies, policies, infrastructures and sectors. Safety innovations are an equally essential and rich avenue for development, contributing to support Europe´s industrial competitiveness. 

 

CLEPA organises the yearly Innovation Awards competition, that recognises the accomplishments made by European automotive system and component manufacturers in the areas of Environment, Safety, Connectivity, Automation and Cooperation.

 

Sigrid de Vries, CLEPA Secretary General commented: “It is increasingly important to develop new technologies and systems for an ever-higher performance in terms of safety, sustainability, connectivity and seamless mobility. Companies largely carry these investments themselves, injecting substantial revenues back into their product development. However, support from funding programmes remains highly important to boost pre-competitive and collaborative research involving universities, research organisations, industry, SMEs, and other actors research. Here, Europe can continue to play an important role in support of global leadership.”

 

On his opening speech, MEP John Procter highlighted “There is clear need for supporting R&D In Europe. The development of research, supply, processing and production strategies into light-weight component construction developments is crucial for advancement in a low-carbon transition in the automotive sector”. Also, MEP Andor Deli commented “technology neutrality must prevail, based on a ʻwell-to-wheelʼ approach on vehicle emissions. There is a request to the European Commission to propose a methodology for this by the end of 2022” also, he subscribed the importance of having an innovation strategy on the CEE countries that “aims to attract the research and development teams of the automotive sector for not just traditional but also autonomous driving” 

 

Read the full news in our website

 More information about CLEPA Innovation Awards here

2018 Awarded Innovations brochure 

Videos from the winners in our YouTube channel

The policy papers and pictures from the event will be available next week at the European Forum for Manufacturing website   http://www.euromanuforum.com/

 

Note to the editor:

CLEPA, the European Association of Automotive Suppliers, represents over 3.000 companies supplying state-of-the-art components and innovative technology for safe, smart and sustainable mobility, investing over 20 billion euros yearly in research and development. Automotive suppliers in Europe employ nearly five million people across the continent.