AMIA: Exclusive benefits, regular meetings and extra share of CXI research

The CXI Research Centre at the Technical University of Liberec hosted a meeting of AMIA members. The traditional autumn meeting at the Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovations brought together twenty representatives of industrial companies from the Liberec region. When the association started at CXI in 2014, its aim was to create a network of industrial partners for research collaboration on specific technical problems. Today, this network is active, with permanent members who support CXI and influence the direction of the Institute's basic and applied research. More than 200 companies have participated in collaborative research with CXI since 2010."

The priority of the University of Liberec's research centre is applied research and cooperation with industrial enterprises. "The companies themselves seek us out, but we also approach the companies and offer them our services and the results of our research. We have a wide range of services in three research areas - competitive engineering, materials research focused on nanofibers and nanomaterials, and systems integration focused on IT and system solutions," says Adam Blažek, Director of Industry Relations. CXI's biggest partners in AMIA, he says, include Atrea, Preciosa, Bosch, Magna and Galvanoplast.

Industry partner meetings are held regularly every year, with the exception of the COVID pandemic when there was no meeting.

"This is my fourth time at the AMIA meeting and I always meet interesting companies. I meet people here with whom we discuss collaborative research. I'm interested in what new developments the university has to offer, but at the same time, we see where the developments we have supported have gone," says Bohumil Cimbál, Head of Research and Development at Atrea s.r.o.

A key member of AMIA is PRECIOSA, a major regional manufacturer of lighting fixtures and components. What Jakub Hayer, R&D Director of PRECIOSA Components, appreciates most about the partnership is the research into surface layers, as well as nanofibres. "We are an active member and supporter of the AMIA club. We are most interested in and actually use the knowledge and trends in surface layer research. We are also involved in Elmarco in some way, so we are also interested in the nanofibers area. I think the future of AMIA is bright. We have projects underway and are planning to expand our activities, in which we would like to use the latest research information from CXI and transfer it competently to specific applications in our production," explains Jakub Hayer.

The research and cooperation with partner companies is mainly carried out at the Institute for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovations at TUL. The Institute includes scientists, researchers and PhD students from most faculties of the Technical University of Liberec: the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Textiles and the Faculty of Mechatronics, Informatics and Interdisciplinary Studies.

"AMIA members and our partners from industry work with us because they can significantly influence what we work on at CXI in basic and applied research. We meet regularly to discuss current trends. We enrich each other's expertise and also invite our students to work with us so that they can get to know the industrial environment and start working for companies. I wish AMIA to be attractive for companies, to grow as much as possible and to gain more members," says AMIA founder doc. Stanislav Petrík.

The advantage of AMIA membership is a discounted price for all contract research conducted under the auspices of CXI TUL. In the case of full membership it is a 15% discount, for associate members there is a 10% discount on research.