"Pro²Future" is the one-word answer to face crucial challenges when creating industrial systems for the future. Together with leading technical universities and international research facilities, industrial companies in Upper Austria and Styria are taking the initiative by creating the world’s first research center for this particular topic.

Participants at a recent ceremony held at the JKU toasted to success: Over 50 researchers will be a part of the center’s first phase and will work on smart products and production systems of the future with financing of approximately 17 million euros provided by a COMET funding program Linz, Graz and Steyr.

We should not fear machines that will be able to think in the future. Univ. Prof. Alois Ferscha added: "Robots - and machines in general - are not people and they never will be."

Pro²Future’s overall goal does not strive to create humanless factories in the future; the program aims to create a highly flexible collaboration between man and machine ("Man-Machine Interaction", "Human in the Loop"). The center’s industrial partners will be able to one day transfer the research behind these visionary technologies to real-world applications at their companies and continue to be internationally competitive, securing jobs for the future.