The Joint Research Center: A Model for Industry-Academy Collaboration

The Joint Research Unit (JRU), nowadays the Joint Research Center (JRC), is an initiative supported by the Galician regional administration (by GAIN, Axencia Galega de Innovación), the shipbuilding company Navantia S.A.S.M.E., and the University of A Coruña (UDC). The project is intended to support Navantia throughout the digital transition processes in the framework of the industry 4.0, nowadays Industry 5.0. The JRC was developed from 2015 to 2021 and it might be considered as a reference in Spain due to its outstanding results. The JRU included 16 research lines related to product development, such us the ones that involved the use of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for surveyance, robotics, process modelling and simulation, or digital twins, among others. More than 100 people were involved from both the UDC and Navantia, using a budget of near 5.0 M€. The JRU was further enhanced in 2022 through a new step, the JRC, which will finish at the end of September 2025. The JRC is focused on three main research lines: the creation of digital twins of products, which is mainly intended for damage and emergency cases onboard; the digital twin of the factory and processes, which will support the new block factory of the factory that Navantia owns at the estuary of Ferrol; and new products/processes, for supporting disruptive procedures on shipbuilding.