Based on nine priority areas defined in the Smart Specialization Strategy, in late January the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports and the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology launched an RDI call "RDI in value chain and networks".
The aim of the call was to integrate science, research and economics to promote the implementation of R & D and innovation programs, projects or business consortia to develop new products, services, processes and new technologies in priority areas of S4. At the call, 9 projects, including the photonics project GOSTOP, was selected. The objective of the GOSTOP research program is to accelerate the development and construction of the concept of smart factories in Slovenia and to respond to the current needs of the Slovenian economy, where certain industrial companies are trying to introduce the concept of smart factories in their production.
Considering the Slovenian strategy for smart specialization as well as the development concept of smart factories, four fields have been identified in which Slovenia could achieve significant breakthroughs in the near future: technology leadership, tools, robotics and photonics. The program proposes the development of new products and technologies by small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as the development of the overall concept of the smart factory, which aims to introduce comprehensive and integrated systems to allow larger Slovenian companies to optimize their own production processes and develop new products with high added value.
The program, which will run for three and a half years, has joined a research group consisting of 13 companies and six research organizations. The majority of them are also members of the Slovenian national platform for photonics – Fotonika21.