Founding members of the Initiative on European Learning Factories (from left to right: Prof. Laszlo Monostori, Prof. Wilfried Sihn, Prof. Friedrich Bleicher, Prof. Vera Hummel, Prof. Kurt Matyas, Prof. Eberhard Abele, Dr. Thomas Lundholm, Dr. Dimitris Mavrikios, Christian Morawetz, Prof. Ivica Veza, Prof. Toma Udiljak, Jan Cachay, Prof. Bengt Lindberg. Not in the picture: Prof. Gunther Reinhart, Prof. Pedro Cunha)
    Founding members of the Initiative on European Learning Factories (from left to right: Prof. Laszlo Monostori, Prof. Wilfried Sihn, Prof. Friedrich Bleicher, Prof. Vera Hummel, Prof. Kurt Matyas, Prof. Eberhard Abele, Dr. Thomas Lundholm, Dr. Dimitris Mavrikios, Christian Morawetz, Prof. Ivica Veza, Prof. Toma Udiljak, Jan Cachay, Prof. Bengt Lindberg. Not in the picture: Prof. Gunther Reinhart, Prof. Pedro Cunha)

    The first isolated, local learning factories have been developed in the 1980s. In the following years, a few learning factories were built up and operated. After an accumulation of learning factories in Europe since 2007, these learning factory operators joined forces to form the first network – the Initiative on European Learning Factories (IELF) in May 2011 when the first Conference on Learning Factories took place at TU Darmstadt. Prof. Eberhard Abele (TU Darmstadt) became president and Prof. Wilfried Sihn (TU Wien) became Vice-President. Due to the internationalization, the IELF transformed to the International Association on Learning Factories (IALF) in 2017. Since then, partners from all over the world such as USA, Singapore and South Africa joined the association.

    Timeline of Presitency of the IALF.
    Presidencies of the IALF