Research centre for the application of steel (OCAS) celebrates its 25th anniversary
Research centre OCAS, the joint venture between ArcelorMittal and the Flemish region, celebrated its 25th anniversary in Ghent on Tuesday September 6th 2016.
During the last quarter-century OCAS underwent several transformations, today the team consists of more than 15 nationalities. During the opening speech of the academic session Sven Vandeputte, delegate director of OCAS, referred to the original goal of OCAS: “building a bridge between producers and consumers”. Throughout the last 25 years, the research centre has indeed served many times as a bridge. A bridge between the industry and universities, between the industry and government, between the international ArcelorMittal Group and start-up companies, between a wide variety of competencies and R&D partners. Other speakers during the academic session were the mayor of Ghent Daniël Termont, Brian Aranha (Executive vice-president ArcelorMittal, head of strategy, CTO, R&D, Commercial Coordination & Marketing, and Global Automotive) and Flemish minister of Work, economy, innovation and sports, Philippe Muyters.
After the academic sessions, the retrospective exhibition “OCASional stories” was opened, showing the OCAS’ research projects of the last 25 years in an impressive timeline of 25 meters and visualizing the academic and scientific partners of the research centre into a 25m² map of the world.
