A new way to make and manufacture things is emerging. Increasing pressures on natural resources, meeting sustainability targets and driving new innovation mean we need a different approach. We need new ideas.

Some people call this the fourth Industrial Revolution.

We’re now seeing examples of large manufacturers being open to collaboration with the grass-roots maker movement, on everything from 3D printing to small-scale manufacturing and industrial innovations. We want to help these ideas become a movement, in the same way that the Open Source programming movement rewrote the rules on home computing.

OpenMaker is a pan-European initiative, connecting the best ideas in Britain, Italy, Slovakia and Spain. We will develop new ideas, designs and prototypes, business models and governance systems.

It is an exciting project – a fusing of scalable or replicable industrial processes with state-of-the-art technology, and the ingenuity and creativity of individuals or groups of makers. It will be through these new processes, ideas and institutions that this revolution comes about. Join us as we make the move to manufacturing 4.0.