The Path is Cleared for Textile Factory 7.0: Following the Signing of the Cooperation Agreement Among Project Partners and the Founding of a Central Management Company, Funding Applications Can Now Be Submitted. The Involved Stakeholders Commit to Long-Term Collaboration. Project Start is Planned for 2025.

Few locations could have been more symbolic than the Textile Academy NRW for this occasion: It was here that the founding of “T7 Management GmbH” and the signing of the cooperation agreement for the large-scale project “Textile Factory 7.0” (T7) were conducted by Mönchengladbach’s Mayor Felix Heinrichs, the President of Hochschule Niederrhein Dr. Thomas Grünewald, the Deputy Chancellor of RWTH Aachen Thomas Trännapp, the President of the Association of the Northwest German Textile and Clothing Industry e.V. Dr. Wilfried Holtgrave, and the Chairman of the Association of the Rhenish Textile and Clothing Industry e.V. Rolf A. Königs, in the presence of the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Zukunftsagentur Rheinisches Revier.

The overarching T7 project aims to shape the transformation process of the textile industry amid structural change in the Rhineland region through application-oriented research and development. Initially, a technology center will be established, with the long-term goal of creating a zero-emission industrial park for the textile industry in Mönchengladbach (T7 Park). Project partners include Hochschule Niederrhein, RWTH Aachen with the ITA (Institute for Textile Technology), WFMG – Wirtschaftsförderung Mönchengladbach GmbH, as well as the Association of the Rhenish Textile and Clothing Industry and the Association of the Northwest German Textile and Clothing Industry. The “T7 Management GmbH” will serve as the central contact point for T7 and the connecting element for the subprojects. Managing Director will be Detlef Braun, who is also Managing Director of Textile Academy NRW and Head of ZiTex – Textile & Fashion NRW. The leadership for the development of the technology center lies with Prof. Dr. Maike Rabe (Head of the Research Institute Textile and Clothing at Hochschule Niederrhein) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Gries (Director of the Institute for Textile Technology at RWTH Aachen). The development of the industrial park is primarily overseen by Daniel Dieker and Sina Borczyk from WFMG.

These two formal steps mark nothing less than the official start of the large-scale project — as they establish legal binding between partners and lay the foundation for long-term cooperation. The task they have committed to is anything but trivial. The textile industry in the Rhineland region faces multiple transformations: production, business processes, and products are becoming digital across company boundaries. The transformation of the textile sector into a sustainable circular economy is indispensable. Resilience of supply chains, skilled labor shortages, and secure energy supply are major challenges. “In Textile Factory 7.0, leading players from research, industry, and municipalities have joined forces to tackle these challenges together with and for the companies,” the project partners emphasized at the signing of the cooperation agreement. In doing so, they will make a key contribution to the structural transformation of the region so that the local textile industry remains a significant economic factor and internationally recognized magnet in the future.

As a model project for the entire manufacturing sector, T7 aims to exemplify sustainable industrial production in 2035 using the textile and clothing industry as an example, generating new high-quality jobs in the Rhineland region while remaining competitive globally. Several consecutive project phases and expansion stages are planned. Approximately 40 million euros are budgeted for the initial phase, with a further roughly 125 million euros for the first growth phase. These figures illustrate the scale of the project. More precisely, the project is divided into sub-applications which will be successively submitted by different actors via various funding channels.

The kick-off will come within a few weeks from Hochschule Niederrhein with the “T7 Factory” application, focusing on the technology center and transferring scientific knowledge into industry. In summer, the municipal development company (EWMG) will follow with the application for the “T7 Park Management Study,” which will advance the planning of the “Industry Park of the Future” to be realized in the second phase, where the textile and clothing industry will develop and produce products under zero-emission and CO2-neutral conditions. Finally, in autumn, RWTH Aachen will complete the initial phase’s applications with another “T7 Factory” sub-application (a supplement to the textile technology and development center). Starting in summer, efforts will also begin to build regional consensus for the subsequent “Growth Phase I,” according to the project partners. The planned project start date is 2025.