Context
In the EU 25, textile and clothing sector can be sum up in four figures:
- 4% of the total manufacturing production
- 7% of the manufacturing employment (2.9 million employees)
- 186, 000 companies (most of them are SME)
- 220 billion € of turnover
Even if this sector is still one of the mean industrial sectors in Europe, it has to face the relocation of production facilities to low-wage countries.
A way to fight against this phenomenon is to focus attention on products’ functionality, flexibility and quality, and to develop SMART TEXTILE. That is to say, high value-added products.
That is why the new challenge for Europe consists in achieving a successful development of technologies and knowledge to be the leader of multifunctional intelligent textiles.
Objectives
CleverTex project aims to contribute to the economic and social progress in the European Union by transforming the industry into a dynamic, innovative, knowledge-driven, competitive and sustainable sector by 2015.
To that
a master plan and framework for future actions in research, education and technology transfer in the field of multi-functional intelligent textile materials in Europe will be developed.
The objectives of this project are to:
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map the possible future technological developments in the intelligent textile sector from a socio-economic (non-technological) and technological perspectives
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prioritise these possible developments in the actual socio-economic environment (technology foresight)
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identify needs, breakthroughs and bottlenecks in order to answer to these developments
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help the transformation of the European Textile and Clothing industry
In order to meet this goal, the work programme is divided into six Work Package (WP) as indicated below:
The application area of these materials is very large ranging from medical and health (release, remote monitoring of patients, tissue engineering …), construction & buildings (light structural components, barrier materials …), clothing & home (ambient intelligence…), improved human performance (sensing, physical capabilities, cognition, communication…).
