High performance textile

The Nord-Pas de Calais honing its capacity in textiles...

Wovens, non-wovens, knits and composites: over the last few decades, the textile industry has become highly diversified, as have textile applications. From firemen’s uniforms to nets for mussel farming via airbags, green roofs, anti-mist fabrics, lighting fi xtures, ski gear and swimwear, products incorporating technical textiles are being used in an ever-growing number of sectors. And this is only for starters. The reason is simple. By combining certain materials and/or products, textiles can offer specific and exceptional properties, like resistance, fl exibility, transparency and lightness, in addition to a look and feel that is unique.
The Nord-Pas de Calais region is attempting to tap into this unlimited potential. Having been a prime base for the textile industry for two centuries, it is now seeking to develop technical textiles. The region is home to around 450 companies employing an average of 40 workers each. This essential structural transformation means these SMEs are able to safeguard jobs while withstanding the current crisis. They are continuing their quest for innovative technologies and are even managing to rival major competitive nations such as China at this level. INNOTEX, the only textile incubator in France, based at ENSAIT (the textile industries institute) as part of the GENI grouping, enables those involved to give concrete expression to ideas and projects for starting up innovative companies.

Textiles, establishing a close-knit community for innovation

Even if the Nord-Pas de Calais textile industry has lost four-fifths of its workforce over the last 25 years, the region remains the second in France in clothing and textiles, with 450 companies and around 13,000 jobs. Accordingly, the launch of the UP-tex competitiveness cluster in 2005 has helped to give the sector fresh impetus.
The reason why a certain number of the companies operating in the region’s textile industry have been able to survive is as a result of business leaders anticipating the transformation of the industry and turning their attention to technical textiles – an area which involves products of a highly technical nature and of high added value. Innovation is therefore of the essence in this sector.

Of course, companies are not often large enough to engage in projects alone that require vast amounts of time and energy and involve several years of work before

they are able to generate results. Fortunately, the UP-tex cluster supports corporate projects thanks to its vast network of partners, which include professional organisations, chambers of commerce and industry, specialised colleges and universities, and institutions. Indeed, the purpose of the cluster is to promote technological innovation through collaborative projects, by positioning textiles firmly at the centre of future materials and stepping up growth in “innovative textile” markets. In doing so, it is targeting areas as varied as clothing, housing, transportation, healthcare, cosmetics and advanced professional clothing.
As André Beirnaert, chairman of the cluster, explains, “it is a matter of designing products for specific applications where we are not used to seeing textiles being used but which we have hit on following research responding to requirements”. Hence, the point of involving structures such as Clubtex – which brings entrepreneurs together in a project environment – the IFTH (French Textile and Clothing Institute) and prestigious colleges specialising in the sector, such as ENSAIT and HEI. Such stakeholders have helped establish forums for exchange and, under UP-tex, are behind CETI (the European Centre for Innovative Textiles) and the Crosstexnet project.

With the support of this network, UP-tex has accredited 57 R&D projects since it was founded for a total sum of €55 million. Its projects have involved over 100 businesses and 51 research laboratories or universities in the areas of advanced materials, plasmas, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, agricultural resources and biopolymers, intelligent textiles and even customisation of the offering. André Beirnaert concludes that “As flexible and functionalisable materials, textiles are providing innovative solutions to all sorts of industries” and “therefore have a massive future ahead of them”.

>> CONTACT :

André BEIRNAERT

Phone: + 33 (0) 320 994 671

www.up-tex.fr