AIMS5.0, a collaborative Innovation Action aims at strengthening European digital sovereignty in comprehensively sustainable production, by adopting, extending and implementing AI-enabled hardware and software components and systems across the whole industrial value chain to further increase the overall efficiency. Vulnerability of existing supply chains in crisis shows the need for shorter supply chains and for keeping production in Europe. AI enabled fabs will be given more output and higher sustainability, which makes them more competitive on a global scale. New technologies from IoT and based on semantic web ontologies, ML and AI will help to enable the transformation from Industry4.0 to Industry5.0, to create human-centric workplace conditions and to enable the transformation of European industry to climate-friendly production. Above all, sustainability and resilience will be improved. In essence, AIMS5.0 will deliver: - AI-enabled electronic hardware components & systems for sustainable production - AI tools, methods & algorithms for sustainable industrial processes - SoS-based architectures & micro-services for AI-supported sustainable production - Semantic modelling & data integration for an open access productive sustainability platform - Acceptance, trust & ethics for explainable industrial AI leading to human-centered sustainable manufacturing 20 use cases in 9 industrial domains resulting in high TRLs will validate the project’s findings in an interdisciplinary manner. A professional dissemination, communication, exploitation and standardisation will ensure the highest impact possible. For the first time a joint approach for implementing AI and AI-enabled hardware will be developed that overarches different industrial domains. AIMS5.0 will result in lower manufacturing costs, increased product quality through AI-enabled innovation, decreased time-to-market and increased user acceptance of versatile technology offerings. They will foster a sustainable development, in an economical, ecological and societal sense and act as enablers for the Green Deal and push the industry towards Industry5.0. The innovations will leverage the experience of the 53 partners, such as renowned OEMs, Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers, technology and application large enterprises and SMEs, supported by academic research specialists in fields like AI, industrial hard-ware and software, decision making and management algorithms. Specific outcomes of the project are - 20% faster time to market, - Participation of disabled people in the factory environment > 5% (in relation to the total number of employees employed in production), - AI based MES capability > 10 %, - Increased user awareness and trust by 10%, - Subsequent reduction of environmental footprint for wafer transport, handling and storage > 20 %, - 50% reduction of time for monitoring industrial equipment. AIMS5.0 is a pan-European initiative to boost industrial competitiveness through interdisciplinary innovations, establishing sustainable ECS value chains and therefore contribute to European Digital Sovereignty addressing urgent issues like Security of Supply, Monitoring and Crisis Response, and Chip Shortage.

AILEEN addresses the shortage of skilled personnel for the Aerospace & Defence Sectors by setting up CoVEs for Advanced Manufacturing (AM), supporting the recovery of the Aerospace sector, developing innovative methodologies and tools, with the nomination of the first Centres of Vocational Excellence in AM, to guarantee specialized sectoral training, and the transfer of excellence knowledge and activities in the field of education and training.With a bottom-up approach, AILEEN will disseminate its results European wide, testing its products at National level at a first stage, ensured by the implementation both within the consortium VET’s but also of VET’s from outside the consortium (that already demonstrated their interest by means of letters of support). The approach will be then transferred to the European level by means of partners networks.Project target groups cover current and future welding and additive manufacturing professionals (adults and youngsters); Welding and Additive Manufacturing VET providers; teachers, trainers & guidance professionals; aerospace & defence experts; relevant national stakeholders; policymakers and/or decision makers; National Qualification Agencies; Aerospace and Defence Industrial stakeholders and the relevant standardisation Bodies.The main expected results are:–Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing Aerospace & Defence CoVEs –Identification of existing CoVE best practices–Development of methodologies to nominate & award of CoVEs–Perform Advanced Manufacturing CoVEs’ Nomination–Creation of mechanisms to transfer best practices among VET & HE institutions–Perform a capacity building workshop for consortium VET partners –Pilot several approaches for training delivery: Apprenticeships, Applied Research and Competence Units –Mobility of staff program among partners

The greatest challenge for today's Europe’s engineering economies is the so called smart industry, which is understood as the intelligent IT-based components and systems within all key areas of supply, production and distribution chains. This irreversible leap forward in industrial development is comparable with the introduction of steam power, electricity or basic IT at previous stages and is therefore known as the fourth industrial revolution.Engineering enterprises must act quickly because they need to:• build-up IT-controlled communication and interaction processes between various actors during the entire production and value chain• develop and implement Cyber-Physical Systems• redefine management and staff skills• restructure work organisation and communication flowUnfortunately, Europe’s enterprises are poorly prepared for these developments and lag behind their competitors in the USA and Asia. In particular SMEs, the backbone of Europe’s industry and still global leaders in many parts of the market, are under enormous pressure in order not to completely lose contact and their share of the market in the medium-term. Recently, some national initiatives have put smart industry on the agenda, however these are very generic, not interlinked with each other and provide little support to SMEs.Therefore, the SMeART project has been initiated to build up sustainable cooperation between HEIs and engineering SMEs to ensure the successful transfer to smart industry by:• Comparative description of major smart industry initiatives in all 28 member states, interlinking them through our project• A survey on smart industry situation of engineering SMEs and profiling of clear areas for support and guidance by HEIs• Development of a HEI business cooperation model for upskilling SMEs to meet the challenges of smart engineering• Development of a sustainable learning, exchange and networking online portal to ensure further cooperation, development and lobbying.