With ca 900 full-time professionals, CRF –Centro Ricerche Fiat– (an FCA company), founded in 1978, has the mission to develop and transfer innovative products, processes and methodologies in order to improve the competitiveness of the products of the Fiat Group.
Through the cooperation with a pan-European and increasingly global network of more than 1800 partners from industry and academia, CRF (an FCA company) conducts collaborative research initiatives at the national and international levels in partnership with all the key public and private stakeholders concerned with sustainable mobility, targeting specifically the industrial exploitation of research.
By December 2013, the Intellectual Property developed by CRF (an FCA company) included a total of 2722 patents, both granted and pending, protecting 662 inventions. The CRF (an FCA company) research activities imply strategic competences not only in the field of automotive engineering, but also in the fields of manufacturing, advanced materials, ICT and electronics, as well as a wide range of state-of-the-art laboratories and extensive test facilities.
CRF (an FCA company) develops research and innovation along the three principal axes of sustainability: Environmental Sustainability, which encompasses all aspects relating to energy efficiency as well as to the reduction of the impact on the environment over the entire lifecycle of the vehicle; Social Sustainability, focusing on the safety of transportation systems; Economically sustainable competitiveness, oriented towards viable innovation.