About us

iPrint is an institute and competence centre of of the School of Engineering and Architecture of Fribourg (HEIA-FR), member of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) founded in 2013. The institute is located at the Marly Innovation Center (MIC) in Switzerland in a building of more than 1500m2 equipped with 24 laboratories. 

iPrint is currently one of the largest and most dynamic institutions for applied research and innovative technologies in digital printing. The performed applied research is multidisciplinary, drawing on the latest developments in engineering and on close collaborations with fundamental research institutes. As a leading research partner for industry, iPrint regularly makes significant contributions to technology innovation. Thanks to its expertise in processes, methods and advanced materials, and leveraging on the close collaboration with equipment suppliers, iPrint is a valued provider of know-how in various industrial sectors.

On the one hand, iPrint focuses on the development on innovative technologies, to overcome today’s technology limitations and to therefore allow the revolution in tomorrow’s digital production. On the other hand, iPrint develops and optimizes inkjet-based digital printing processes in four main areas: Graphical Printing,  Advanced Manufacturing,  Biomedical Printing and Printing for Electronics . iPrint is also supporting industrial partners by fostering the technology transfer for digital printing processes. Finally, iPrint educates newcomers and specialists in inkjet-related core competences with a highly interdisciplinary understanding through The Inkjet Training, a high-level and hands-on practical education. On the academic level, iPrint regularly hosts mechanics, electronics, computer science or chemistry students on Bachelor, Master and PhD levels for their projects and research activities.

Today, at iPrint, a team of around 35 professionals share their knowledge and expertise in a place where academia and industry are being brought together. With a broad national and international industry and academic network, with frequent exchanges with key players of companies and key researchers from well-known institutes, iPrint has a clear overview of relevant meta topics in digital printing. In recent years, iPrint has proven to be able to anticipate the right trends and to develop very early competences and infrastructure for exploring the potential of processes and products into new markets. Inkjet technology as the iPrint’s USP is digital by nature and digitalization is omnipresent in today’s innovation. iPrint currently runs several dozen of projects in parallel and has built more than 40 custom-built research printer platforms.