PRESS RELEASE

The decision to support RICAIP (English abbreviation for Research and Innovation Centre for Advanced Industrial Production) came from the European Commission this spring, officially starts the project in September. In the next more than six years, the RICAIP partners will be able to draw on support amounting to almost 50 million EUR (1.2 billion CZK). This will create the European Centre of Excellence for advanced industrial production, the largest in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and industrial robotics, which is based on strategic cooperation between the Czech Republic and Germany. The partners of the project are its main coordinator of CIIRC CTU, CEITEC BUT and DFKI and ZeMA based in Saarbrücken on the German side.

Jean-Eric Paquet, Director General of the European Commission, stressed that obtaining this support is an appreciation of the exceptional quality of the project under evaluation and pointed out that only one in 15 of the otherwise generally high quality submitted projects received EU funding. He said so two days earlier in Brussels at the solemn signing of a document by which the EU allocates 15 million EUR to build the RICAIP Centre of Excellence. The remaining part of the funding will be covered by the European Structural Funds and national sources.

“It is an important project supporting the National Innovation Strategy and the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence. It is fully consistent with the EU's efforts to strengthen research in the field of industrial production with AI research results,” the Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček said in a video greeting. "I am convinced that the project will provide a significant support to SMEs and will also become a tool for effectively extending cooperation with German partners and enhancing our contribution to developing the EU's production potential," he added, assuring the project's importance and full support from the Czech government.

“The newly built RICAIP Centre has a truly European format and will serve the research in the field of intelligent manufacturing across Europe. Of course, a significant part of the capacity will strengthen the modernization of Czech SMEs. It is important that RICAIP will contribute to the expansion of modern education of students and doctoral students at CTU and BUT,” Professor Vladimír Mařík, Scientific Director of CIIRC CTU, says. BUT rector Petr Štěpánek adds: “The international RICAIP project will not only enable the virtual interconnection of various laboratories for intelligent manufacturing throughout the Europe, but it also brings the possibility of significant research cooperation with German partners directly for BUT. Obtaining such a prestigious project is a proof of the good scientific results of the excellent CEITEC BUT centre and the great potential of Czech experts in the field of cybernetics and artificial intelligence."

“The RICAIP project is a logical continuation of CEITEC's activities in the research of highly automated systems. The infrastructure built within RICAIP system will provide researchers with an excellent environment for designing and validating artificial intelligence solutions for manufacturing technologies. This will, of course, enable the further development of international cooperation. RICAIP will thus be an important part of regional and national innovative ecosystems, in particular by supporting cooperation with innovative SMEs," Radimír Vrba, the Director of CEITEC BUT, said.