Co-funded under the European Union's Erasmus+- program, the ADDTEX project, “Advancing industrial digital and green innovations in the advanced textile industry through innovation in learning and training.” (Project No. 101056303) aims to facilitate the flow and co-creation of knowledge between higher education and vocational training, research, public institutions and companies in the innovative textile materials/technical textiles sector in order to promote new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning.

Following meetings in Terrassa, Spain in July 2022 as a kick-off event and in Portugal at CITEVE in January 2023, the 3rd meeting of the partners was now held at the National Advanced Manufacturing Centre (AMC) headquarters in the National Technology Park.

At the AMC, manufacturers and visitors have access to a world-class digital factory where the latest manufacturing technologies are deployed in an integrated, fully representative production environment. Under the auspices of the University of Limerick/Shannon (TUS), as ADDTEX's Irish project partner, a “Confirm” research center for intelligent manufacturing is also to be established here. An ideal venue for the 3rd meeting of the ADDTEX project partners, where primarily the contents of the interactive online courses (MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses) on the topics of innovative, sustainable materials, digitalization and sustainability in the textile industry and here with a focus on technical textiles were discussed. The teaching material is to be made available for both higher education and adult education in the spirit of MOOCs and differentiated in its orientation towards managers, engineers and technicians.

The two-day meeting began with an overview of the state of the art of MOOC. The partners UB, UPC, (both Spain) as well as TUS (Ireland) and PIN (Italy) presented their status quo of teaching materials. The other partners, including IVGT, provided useful feedback for the finalization of the main content and the preparation of the supplementary materials (additional materials, assessment tool, document for students and e-book). During the summer, the project partners will now work on recording and setting up the e-learning platform, which should be available by the end of 2023. Stefan Schmidt of the IVGT comments: “It is important to us at the IVGT that the courses are created with a practical orientation and that the selected topics are based on the needs of the industry. For companies in the technical textiles sector, it is important that their employees and those who want to become employees are made fit for the future and generate appropriate knowledge in the areas of sustainability, digitalization and innovations for this purpose.”