Contact
Vincent Marchal
Chemin du Stockoy, 3
1300 Wavre
Belgium
Belgium / Wallonia
Ph +32 (0)10 47 19 44
Fax +32 (0)10 45 33 43
vincent.marchal(at)uwe.be
Website
Skywin - Aerospace cluster from Wallonia
Cluster Description
Facts & Figures
| Number of companies | 98 |
| Number of employees | 7000 |
| Number of research institutes | 4 |
| Other cluster members | |
Cluster Management
| Organizational form | Non-profit organization |
| Financing | Regional funds (Walloon Region) for 100% of the operational costs. |
Main Actors
| Main industry actors | Sonaca, SABCA, Techspace Aero (Safran Group), Thales Communication Belgium, Alcatel Alenia Space ETCA |
| Main research institutes | Cenaero, UCL, ULg, FPMs |
Cluster Competences and Strategy
Strengths & Competences
Further than the current competences distributed among our members, Skywin also pushes new development in 4 major domains:
- Composites materials: design, tooling, manufacturing, etc.
- Telecommunications systems
- Intelligent Health monitoring
- Space applications and related services, micro-satellites.
Speaking about the current competences, one finds major competences in:
- aircraft engines parts (LP compressors and equipment) @ Techspace Aero
- aero-structures: leading edges manufacturing @ Sonaca
- aero and space structures @ S.A.B.C.A.
- telecommunications systems @ Thales
- satellite components @ Alcatel Alenia Space.
Science & Research
Skywin has one important mission: organizing selection and submission to the Government of R&D and investment projects. Those projects must be with strong innovation content and must also be led by industry members but must also include at least 2 academic or R&D partners. Currently Skywin has a project’s portfolio of 11 R&D projects and 4 investment projects and 7 education projects totalizing more than 75 M€ of total budget. Skywin is currently waiting for the results of a new Call. This will probably bring 5 new R&D projects in our portfolio.
International Collaboration
We have signed MoU with Aerospace Valley (FR), Aéro Montréal (CA), SIATI (India). We are making contacts with other French clusters and looking forward to establish same level of cooperation with all European clusters.
Regarding the topics, we focus on empowering our mutual strengths, i.e. working on our strategic objectives first.
Main Challenges
Main challenge for Skywin is to conduct al projects with limited staff. We also have limited visibility about regional funding of the cluster. We hope to continue the work done so far with increased financial means. Other challenges include a rational internationalisation of our activities.