AMBIT is the wood and furniture technology centre of Catalonia (Spain). AMBIT conducts and promotes wood and furniture technology dissemination, R+D activities and training in order to support Catalan companies’ competitiveness.

AMBIT’s key activities are:

• provide technological services to companies
• promote and develop R+D+i projects
• staff training courses and seminars
• impulse technology transfer and innovation related to design, production technologies, new materials, marketing, ICT,…, applied to the manufacturing and distribution furniture industry and other habitat industries.

AMBIT’s main emphasis on education is to align the wood, furniture and habitat enterprises with societal, technology and market needs.

AMBIT has already launched several actions in the field that ECO4VET addresses:

• Developing several pilot projects in ecodesign with furniture enterprises
• Training in ecodesign Training in sustainable production
• Training in creativity applied to eco-innovation
• Development of guides of ecodesign, sustainable materials and best practices of sustainable production
• Developement of a software for a simplified LCA (Life-cycle analysis) for wood products and furniture

Besides, the centre collaborates (and it is certified) by the Catalonia Employment Service for teaching training courses for unemployed, but AMBIT also teaches courses for workers and usually manages courses subsidized by Social Security. The centre collaborates in the courses definition and implementation of the Catalan Wood Federation and cooperates with the Education Department of the Catalan Government.

Size of the organization: 10 Employees, 2 branches

Affiliations: AMBIT’s funding members are business associations from the Catalan wood and furniture sector: the Catalan Confederation of Wood, the Council of La Senia (where AMBIT is located), University of Rovira I Virgili and CIDEM (Center for Innovation and Development, Department of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise of the Generalitat of Catalonia).

AMBIT belongs to several European Technology Platforms (and the Spanish mirror) such as FTP (Forest-Based), MANUFUTURE (manufacturing), NESSI (Software and Services) and eVIA (health technologies, Spain). At Spanish level, the centre is member of the Red-IMM (Wood and Furniture Technological Institute Network) and belongs to the TECNIO network (www.acc10.cat/tecnio) related to the technology transfer. Finally, AMBIT works closely with AMIC (Associació del Moble Innovador de Catalunya – Catalan Innovation Furniture Association), the innovative enterprise association.

More info: ambitcluster.org