Short Presentation of the Association

European Virtual Institute on Innovation in Industrial Supply Chains and Logistic Networks

 

The proposal of an international association on the topics of innovation in industrial supply chains and logistic networks starts as a spin-off of the European project CODESNET (COllaborative DEmand and Supply NETwork), a Coordination Action of 22 partners coming from 11 different countries.

The main effort in organizing and starting that project was the search and selection of suitable partners and the definition of a proper consortium agreement.

This task, experienced by all the coordinators of European projects, is especially onerous for academic organizations. Therefore the idea of making an association among research and development centres, public but also privately owned, was born in order to significantly reduce efforts required for the above mentioned time-consuming and costing task, by organising periodic meetings among associates with common interests, allowing exchange and sharing of information regarding international research programs and discussion of new project proposals. The output could be the ready formation of adequate consortium for every new research projects.

The association can be described by the following key points:

 

1. It will be a club of high grade scientific institutions (Universities, Research Centres, Innovation Agencies) which will schedule periodic brainstorming to find new ideas,  new research lines, proposals for new research projects and so on.
2. The association scope is to set up an environment useful for the growth and the development of new research ideas and suggestions, not only for the associated institutions, but also  to be disseminated towards the social-economic context and local governments.
3. Then, the association will play the role of ideas generator. The secretariat will manage the contacts among associates and will support periodic meetings. Meeting outcome could be published in the form of public documents, conference papers or journal articles.
4. To comply with the aims of the association, the organization will be as light as possible: a committee of representatives of all associates, among which a director (to coordinate the committee) is elected.
5. The association follows the Italian Civil Code. Then, it is constituted as a non profit organization, with a proper autonomy which will make it able to contract agreements with other institutions by only involving its own assets plus assets of the person (the association director) who represents the association on the outside. In the starting phase however no such agreements are forecast but, in case the association will growth in the future, they are not forbidden. In fact, objectives of the association are coordination and promotion of research opportunities, to be pointed out to the associates, who could individually exploit them..
6. The association indeed, each time a new research line will be identified together with a related funding opportunity, will consider its objectives fully accomplished ! The association will not participate directly to the research project: it will be a job of those individual associates, interested in the new research and in the related funding opportunity, to define the proposal, to constitute an ad hoc consortium, to submit the project and to negotiate with the funding institution.

 

On 8th of June 2007, at the Politecnico di Torino, the association constitution act has been signed by the following representatives:

 

• Prof. Marco Gilli, Vice-Rector, on behalf of  Politecnico di Torino
• Prof. Christopher O’Brien, on behalf of Nottingham University
• Prof. Alexandre Dolgui, on behalf of  Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint Etienne
• Prof. Walter Ukovich,  on behalf of  Università degli Studi di Trieste
• Prof. Dieter Spath, on behalf of  Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.