VET4DATACOOPERATION at Manufacturing Day 2026: Meeting the European industrial ecosystem
On 21 May 2026, Vienna hosted Manufacturing Day 2026 as part of ViennaUP - one of Europe's leading events dedicated to advanced manufacturing, industrial AI and deep-tech entrepreneurship. The event was organised by EIT Manufacturing East GmbH, the consortium partner leading all dissemination and communication activities within VET4DATACOOPERATION, and brought together more than 500 participants from over 50 countries. Founders, corporates, investors, researchers and policymakers gathered to explore a question of Europe's economic future: how to translate world-class industrial innovation into practically deployable capability.
Manufacturing Day is EIT Manufacturing East's flagship annual event - a platform where the organisation's broader mission of connecting, educating and scaling the European manufacturing ecosystem finds its most visible expression. For VET4DATACOOPERATION, participation represented a direct opportunity to bring the project into the environment it was designed to serve.
VET4DATACOOPERATION in the expo area
VET4DATACOOPERATION was present in the event's expo area with a dedicated project booth featuring project materials and a roll-up presenting the project's objectives, training programme and consortium. The booth attracted interest from SMEs - the primary audience the project's training is designed to reach - reflecting the direct relevance of data cooperation skills to the manufacturing professionals gathered at the event.
The expo brought together a range of other European innovation projects and initiatives, including DATA4CIRC, EU.FFICIENT, BLUEVISION and WELDIFY. Supporting the event were organisations from across the industrial and innovation landscape - among them EY, UNIDO, De Nora, Infineon and Wirtschaftsagentur Wien - underscoring the cross-sector scope of the gathering and the breadth of stakeholders engaged in European manufacturing's ongoing transformation.
Themes that confirm the industry's reality
The stage programme at Manufacturing Day 2026 reflected many of the same challenges VET4DATACOOPERATION was built to address.
Across several keynotes, panels and startup pitches, discussions centred on the practical demands of Europe's industrial shift: AI-powered production, supply chain resilience, data-driven operations and the organisational capacity required to engage with them effectively. Speakers highlighted that Europe's industrial strength is in the ability to convert that strength into scalable, practical capability remains a critical and unresolved gap.
In the flagship afternoon panel on Europe's scale-up challenge, Hannes Hunschofsky, Managing Director of EIT Manufacturing East, moderated a discussion on the realities of scaling industrial ventures across the continent. Jasmina Popovska, Head of Investment and International Projects at EIT Manufacturing East, joined the panel as one of five speakers exploring what holds back industrial growth in European markets.
The conversations on stage aligned closely with what the VET4DATACOOPERATION Needs Analysis Report had already documented through survey data: organisations recognise the importance of data cooperation, but they need practical knowledge, legal clarity and accessible training to move from awareness to action. Manufacturing Day 2026 confirmed both the appetite and the urgency.
Participation in Manufacturing Day 2026 marked one of VET4DATACOOPERATION's first major in-person dissemination activities. As the project moves into the training development phase, events of this kind will continue to connect the project's outputs with the manufacturing professionals and SMEs they are designed to support.
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