Schaeffler is broadening its cooperation in the research and development of axlebox bearings for railway vehicles by adding a research team on the campus of Chinese Southwest Jiaotong University. As a world leader in the area of innovation, Schaeffler is therefore consistent in expanding its collaboration with universities, institutes, and research facilities.

Schaeffler has once again expanded its global footprint at universities by officially inaugurating a Schaeffler Hub for Advanced Research (SHARE) at Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU). This cooperation with one of the most important universities in the area of railway engineering worldwide is for the purpose of researching and developing axlebox bearings for railway vehicles. Back in 2016, Schaeffler signed a cooperation agreement with the university to establish a joint research laboratory.

“The challenges posed to future mobility outside the cities are immense as interurban traffic increases. Schaeffler has been serving the industry for over ten decades with our competence in manufacturing bearings for the railway sector. The cooperation with SWJTU will enable us to design new solutions for the interurban mobility of tomorrow by combining the research capacities of the university with our mechatronic competence and system expertise in the predictive maintenance of axlebox bearings,” said Professor Dr.-Ing. Peter Gutzmer, deputy CEO and chief technology officer at Schaeffler AG, on the occasion of the opening ceremony. Professor Gutzmer will also be serving as a guest professor at SWJTU in the future.

SHARE at SWJTU is therefore part of Schaeffler’s global innovation network – along with the company-on-campus concepts of SHARE at FAU (Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), SHARE at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), and recently opened SHARE at NTU (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). The different cooperations cover the future opportunities that Schaeffler has defined for itself. Whereas the focus of the research conducted by SHARE at FAU is on digitalization and production connectivity, SHARE at KIT on electric mobility and lightweight design, and SHARE at NTU on personal urban mobility, SHARE at SWJTU is specializing in interurban mobility – especially railway transportation.

Looking to the future, both Schaeffler and SWJTU expect the cooperation to go beyond the current ongoing research projects and extend to areas such as academic exchanges and talent development.