(29.11.16) The eighth annual meeting of BRAGECRIM (the Brazilian-German Collaborative Research Initiative in Manufacturing Technology) took place from 14 to 16 November 2016. This year’s host was Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH (BIBA) run by the University of Bremen.

The 50 delegates included representatives from the German and Brazilian funding organisations – the DFG and CAPES – the research projects’ principal investigators and Brazilian and German early career researchers.

The first day of the event began with an opening speech by the host, Prof. Michael Freitag, head of BIBA, followed by the coordinators of the BRAGECRIM research initiative Prof. Tilo Pfeifer from RWTH Aachen University and Prof. Carlos Eduardo Pereira from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Clarissa Soares, a representative of the Brazilian funding organisation CAPES, and Dr. Dietrich Halm, a representative of the DFG, also gave short welcoming speeches.

In the course of the two-day meeting, early career researchers introduced their ongoing projects in presentations and poster exhibitions. Representatives from Robert Bosch GmbH and Volkswagen AG also gave talks on the challenges regarding data, production and logistics management within the framework of Industry 4.0.

One of the focuses of this annual meeting was the strategic reorientation of the BRAGECRIM research initiative. To that end, a new framework concept was discussed with the representatives of the Brazilian partner organisation and the researchers involved. Ways to further develop collaboration between the Brazilian partner organisation CAPES and the DFG were also discussed.

BRAGECRIM is one of the largest German-Brazilian collaborative research initiatives. Over 300 researchers from numerous German and Brazilian universities and non-university research organisations have investigated key issues affecting all the stages of the production cycle, with research in materials science in addition to manufacturing, metrology and logistics. During this year’s annual meeting, Dr. Halm (DFG) emphasised that: “BRAGECRIM is a German-Brazilian success story. The research initiative, which is jointly funded by the DFG and CAPES, focuses on manufacturing and has been in place for over eight years now. It has funded just under 50 projects with approximately €11 million from the German side alone and trained countless early career researchers from Brazil and Germany within the framework of funded projects. BRAGECRIM has had a positive impact on academic and professional careers in both countries.”