Mönchengladbach. It would have been hard to imagine a more symbolic location than the Textile Academy NRW for this occasion: The founding of "T7 Management GmbH" and the signing of the cooperation agreement for the major "Textile Factory 7.0" (T7) project have now been celebrated there by Mönchengladbach's Lord Mayor Felix Heinrichs, the President of The Hochschule Niederrhein Dr. Thomas Grünewald, the representative of the Chancellor of RWTH Aachen University Thomas Trännapp, the President of the Association of the Northwest German Textile and Clothing Industry Dr. Wilfried Holtgrave and the Chairman of the Association of the Rhineland Textile and Clothing Industry Rolf A. Königs in the presence of the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Rhineland Region Future Agency.

The overall T7 project aims to shape the transformation process of the textile industry against the backdrop of structural change in the Rhenish mining area through application-oriented research and development. To this end, a technology center will initially be set up, with the long-term aim of creating a zero-emission industrial park for the textile industry in Mönchengladbach (T7 Park). The Hochschule Niederrhein, RWTH Aachen University with the ITA (Institute for Textile Technology), WFMG - Wirtschaftsförderung Mönchengladbach GmbH as well as the Association of the Rhineland Textile and Clothing Industry and the Association of the Northwest German Textile and Clothing Industry are partners in the project. In future, "T7 Management GmbH" will act as the central point of contact for T7 and the connecting element for the sub-projects. The managing director will be Detlef Braun, who is also managing director of the Textile Academy NRW and head of ZiTex - Textil & Mode NRW. Prof. Dr. Maike Rabe (Head of the Textile and Clothing Research Institute at The Hochschule Niederrhein) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Gries (Director of the Institute of Textile Technology at RWTH Aachen University) are in charge of the development of the technology center. Daniel Dieker and Sina Borczyk from WFMG are primarily responsible for the development of the industrial park.

The two formal steps thus mark nothing less than the official starting signal for the large-scale project - as they also establish a legal commitment between the partners and lay the foundation for long-term cooperation. The task to which they have committed themselves is also anything but trivial. After all, the textile industry in the Rhenish mining area has to cope with multiple transformations: Production, business processes and products are becoming digital - across companies. The transformation of the textile industry into a sustainable circular economy is essential. Supply chain resilience, a shortage of skilled workers and a secure energy supply are major challenges. "In Textile Factory 7.0, leading players from research, industry and local authorities have joined forces to tackle these challenges for and together with companies," emphasized the project participants on the sidelines of the signing of the cooperation agreement. In this way, a key contribution will be made to structural change in the region so that the regional textile industry will continue to be a significant location factor and magnet of international importance in the future.

As a model project for the entire manufacturing industry, T7 is intended to model sustainable industrial production in the year 2035 using the example of the textile and clothing industry, which will generate new high-quality jobs in the Rhenish mining area and will also be competitive in a global context. Several successive project phases and expansion stages are planned. A project volume of around 40 million euros in the initial phase and a further 125 million euros in the first growth phase: the figures behind T7 illustrate the dimensions of the project. More precisely, the projects, as the mammoth project is split into partial funding applications, which are successively submitted by various players via different funding sources.

The Hochschule Niederrhein will kick things off within a few weeks with the "T7 Factory" application, which focuses on the transfer of scientific knowledge to the economy with the technology center. The municipal development company (EWMG) will follow in the summer with the "T7 Park Management Study" application. Among other things, this is intended to drive forward the planning of the "Industrial Park of the Future" to be realized in the second phase, in which the textile and clothing industry will develop and manufacture products under zero-emission conditions and CO2 neutrality. Finally, in the fall, RWTH Aachen University is to complete the application submissions for the initial phase with a further sub-proposal "T7 Factory" (supplement to the Textile Technologies and Development Center). According to those involved in the project, the aim is to start building regional consensus for the subsequent "Growth Phase I" from the summer. The project is scheduled to start in 2025.