The Manufuture’2007 Conference was held on 2-4 December 2007 in Porto, Portugal. The conference theme was: Constructing a Sustainable Competitive Europe. Over 320 delegates attended the event. During the Conference, senior EU Officers gave presentations on the opportunities provided by the EU’s Framework Programme. Experts from Europe, China and USA also shared with the participants their views about the status of manufacturing worldwide and highlighted the challenges facing the sector in a globalised marketplace.

To show examples of transformation of individual companies, sectors and of the infrastructure inline with the Manufuture Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) and the conference, a series of parallel workshops was organised. The themes of these workshops included: the challenges for European high tech sector; the transformation of mature manufacturing; sustainability in manufacturing; ICT in manufacturing research and training for innovation; and raising the RTD intensity of European industry. Each of the workshops was hosted by a company to reflect their industrial relevance.

Following the Conference, I*PROMS Task Force for establishing a legal entity to sustain the Network after the end of the funded period held a meeting to assess the progress of developing the business plan for the entity. On 5-6 December, the I*PROMS APM/PAC clusters organised a 1.5-day joint meeting to discuss the implementation of their JPAs and prepare for the Manufacturing in FP7 Conference to be held in Cardiff on 16-17 January 2008. The clusters also discussed plans for international collaboration and organisation of study tours to USA, Japan, China and India.