Kick-off meeting Networking for advancing excellence and capacity in light-weight castings for Foundry 4.0 in Poland – NetCastPL4.0

Funded by the Horizon Europe, EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation under Grant Agreement Nº 101159771, the NetCastPL4.0 project was officially kicked-off on May 27, 2024 & June 14, 2024 at the Faculty of Foundry Engineering of AGH University of Krakow (Poland).

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy) and Aalto University (Finland) are partners of the NetCastPL4.0 consortium, which is coordinated by AGH University of Krakow. The project team have met and already involved high scientific and institutional stakeholders, taking on the challenge of creating a networking Pole – hosted at AGH University – leading to greening the casting foundry as well developing sustainable lightweight castings products. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of the international consortium and the support of HorizonWidera Action, the twinning NetCastPL4.0 project will introduce innovations in castings solutions at AGH University and will share them with foundries and SMEs willing to join the network Pole to increase their competitiveness and value creation with less overall environmental impact.

To achieve the above goals, the multidisciplinary consortium integrates broad and complementary expertise ranging from cast iron and Al alloys research, light-weight castings modelling, GREEN materials in mold technologies, advanced characterization techniques like EBSD, TEM and XRD. The project will strengthen the already existing collaborations, create new ones, and provide a solid cornerstone for further research efforts of interested stakeholders, including the project partners at the end of the project. The knowledge transfer will be achieved by ambitious staff/PhD student exchanges programme, webinars, thematic workshops, and scientific schools. A broad dissemination program and outreach activities are scheduled aiming to involve audience from both the academic and industrial sectors. The project will strengthen the research management and administrative skills of AGH staff in order to improve and make more effective its research ecosystem.

The EU Contribution to the project is €1,483,993.00.

The project will last three years, from May 1,2024 to April 30, 2027.