Good practice:

RIC - Innovation Center for Research and Education - Upper Austria

Problem addressed: The change in demographics, the trend living in bigger cities, the lower interest to work in technical sectors and the change in technologies (automatization / digitalisation) initiated in 2005 a discussion between BRP-Rotax / Upper Austria and communities. How could a region become resilient and keep people in the region as well as to drive education/ qualification/ innovation to a next higher level?

How objectives are reached: The RIC infrastructure provides training-, workshop- and seminar-rooms with state of the art equipment as well as offers through the ROTAX Academy specialized and focused training programs to all levels of interested people to increase their know-how and competence in the field of the production of the future.
In addition to the workshop area, RIC has 3 “state of the art” high sophisticated test benches for research and development of environmentally friendly propulsion systems as well as a very excellent collaboration with experts and partners from industry and academia.
RIC is a place to develop cutting-edge solutions and to create new skills sets to overcome the challenges for the future of the economy, such as industry to be prepared for Industry 4.0, and production of the future in "Lot size 1".

The main stakeholders are: The entire Upper Austrian region benefits from the RIC, its Expertise in Education-Qualification-Innovation and the very close interaction people/education partners/SME and Industry.

Start-up phase (2008): 8,5 Mio € in Infrastructure, 5 FTE Headcount
Yearly average investment approx. 0,8 Mio €
Actual approx. 35 headcounts to run the current RIC activities

The expertise and close interaction with stakeholders has a big impact on SME and Industries and for the whole region.

The fact that the RIC provides an open access to all, who are interested in new technologies and is located close to one of the leading companies (BRP-Rotax) in the region, as well as RIC's partnership with all education partners the transfer of know-how between Economic and Science or vice versa is provided.
- Currently over 3000 kids/year visit RIC
- over 2,500 kids at event TEC2move
- more than 500 kids/over 15 schools in RIC programs
- over 20,000 training hours/year for adults

To get the buy-in of the shareholder in foundation phase - > personal contacts and tax sharing between communities.
Financial crisis 2009 -> step investment, delay of activities eg ROTAX Activities.
Participation of youth in technical awareness programs -> personal contact to parents / teachers

Industry 4.0 - The Production of the Future means a decisive change in all value-added processes through intelligent and smart networking. Therefore, the designing of the customized products play an important role in development – in accordance with customer requirements – „Lot size 1", aims to produce and deliver with the best customer service.
To deliver on the mission of the RIC - state-of-the-art technological research and training hotspot - the management team ensures constant collaboration with universities, technical and vocational colleges, institutes and other organizations, as well as with independent researchers, experts and knowledge carriers. They ensure that their pool of highly skilled individuals can maximize their knowledge.