The project pursues an interdisciplinary approach, with a socio-economic (13 members) and a technical working group (20 members). The latter will identify trends in technologies, in particular in branches of the metal working industries. The focus is on process innovations which will have an impact on the demand for machinery and equipment applied in industrial production. The core product group under consideration is machine tools. Other equipment (e.g. robotics, tools, transport equipment, controls etc.) will be taken into account to attain a comprehensive view on the evolution of demand for complete manufacturing systems.
The more important tasks of the socio-economic working group are:
In particular the last two tasks require close contact between both of the working groups.
Ifo has an important role in the project. It is the representative of the socio-economic working group in the co-ordinating bodies, the Foresight Committee and the Industrial Advisory Committee, which link together the socio-economic and the technical working group and are responsible for the distribution of the results.
A crucial tool for the analysis of the sectoral investment behaviour are investment matrices developed at the Ifo Institute. They are used as a foundation for the creation of investment matrices for other EU Member States by adjusting them to the specific national structures. This will be carried out in co-operation with national associations of the industry.
The evaluation of investment theories and time series analyses will be carried out in co-operation with IRES, an research institute at the Université catholique de Louvain.
IRES will co-operate with IWB, an institute at the Technical University of Munich to analyse the relationship between technological progress and the evolution of productivity.
The development of the forecasting approach will be executed in co-operation with Oxford Econometric Forecasting Ltd.
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