Membership

Join us and be part of the game changing movement!

Join us!

Members of UniversalAutomation.org have unique development power and access to the next generation of universal automation solutions, working collaboratively. UniversalAutomation.org will act as a centralized hub of automation intelligence.

Plug & Produce

Application Portability & Interoperability

IT/OT Convergence

Vendors

If you are an IT or OT vendor selling hardware, you can get access to an IEC 61499-based runtime and release an Universal Automation offer to market in months rather than years.

Why should vendors join UAO?

Obtain license for UAO runtime execution engine
Share R&D costs with platforming approach
Influence the next development of the runtime execution engine
Get access to key End Users looking for IEC 61499-based systems
Position your company as thought-leader/innovator

Download our brochure for Vendors

Users

If you are an end user, a system integrator, an OEM (machine or process) or a software vendor: Come and join the organization to become a sponsor, drive adoption of the technology by your suppliers and influence the roadmap of the runtime. In this way you will reap the benefits of this innovative technology.

Why should users join UAO?

Support vendor-independent “plug and produce” automation
Network with other users to learn
Drive standardization
Influence the next development of the runtime execution engine
Get trained on the technology, interact with UAO Ecosystem

Pricing for Vendors and Users

Platinum

150 k€ /year

1 general voting right
10 roadmap voting rights
Runtime access

Gold

75 k€ /year

1 general voting right
4 roadmap voting rights
Runtime access

Silver

25 k€ /year

1 general voting right
1 roadmap voting right
Runtime access

Sponsor Voting

18 k€ /year

1 general voting right
0 roadmap voting right
Runtime access on request but non commercial

Sponsor non-voting

2 to 8 k€ * /year

0 general voting right
0 roadmap voting right
Runtime access

1. Revenue dependent: <€10m = €2k, €10m-€100m = €5k, >€100m = €8k

Startups

You want to drive innovation in a universal automation environment? Then join us!

Startups

6 k€ /year

0 general voting right
0 roadmap voting right
Runtime access: Access to source code determined on case-by-case basis by the Board

Conditions (duration, revenue levels, etc.) determined by Board.

Academics

You want to train the next generation of automation technician and engineers on the next generation automation solutions? Then join us!

Academic

2 k€ /year

1 general voting right
0 roadmap voting right
Runtime access: Access to source code determined on case-by-case basis by the Board

	Sponsor					Academic	Start-up
	Non-voting	Voting	Silver	Gold	Platinum
IP Policy Protection
Access to UAO runtime source code repository	1	1				1	1
License to incorporate RT in own offer (as defined in General License Terms)							1
Propose/Elect Board Members
General voting rights (as defined in Articles of Association)
Runtime Backlog/Roadmap voting rights
Sit on User Advisory Board
Participate in Working Groups
Attend annual Membership Assembly
Attend working group meetings
Include product in UAO official demo							1
Member logo in promotional communications
Participation in UAO events
Use "UAO Inside" logo²							1
Use "UAO Member" logo
Include offers in UAO online product directory							1
Access to online training resources²
Certification testing³						1	1
Networking with other members

1. Determined by Board
2. Under development
3. To be defined

Contact us

*Required fields

They joined us

We are excited to be part of UniversalAutomation.org because it promises to be a complete game changer. It opens up a new world of possibilities for organisations like ours. Unlocking valuable data currently buried in proprietary systems, making the connectivity and deployment of new technologies like Artificial Intelligence quick and simple. As part of UniversalAutomation.org we are actively collaborating with and supporting like-minded organisations to create an exciting new open era in operations and automation.

Valeriy Vyatkin

Professor of Electrical Engineering at Aalto University

Advantech is growing fast, and innovation is key to sustaining that growth. Universal Automation offers the kind of innovation we need—bringing together institutions, academics, OEMs, and users to shape the future collaboratively. It’s time to move beyond hardware-defined systems to flexible, software-driven architectures. With UAO, we’re evolving toward a smarter, more adaptable future.

Marco Zampolli

Industrial IoT Product Sales Director

I think now is a great time to disrupt the industry, really become hardware agnostic and let the end user decide what hardware they want to use. Customers can basically choose the hardware they want using just one automation platform, so they become very versatile and are not bound to one particular vendor. Universal Automation provides precisely the level of flexibility that a competitive and sustainable industry requires. For our customers, this is exactly what they are looking for today.

Nicholas Holland

Managing Director - EMEA Broad Market

There is a huge room for improvement on the way runtimes are managed and orchestrated today. By joining UAO we aim to contribute to make large runtime deployments more scalable and secure through modern Edge Management functions. Our participation in UAO represents another significant step in our commitment to delivering open and flexible solutions based on industry standards, enabling industrial organizations to innovate more rapidly and with reduced risk.

David Purón

CEO and Co-founder at Barbara

We joined UAO because we strongly believe that we have to decouple the application from the hardware. The value of our automation is not in the hardware and (yet today) we design every plant in hardware-centric way. That is no longer possible with the regional complexities of cyber security, more maintenance, more complex software requirements. On our current path towards Industry 4.0 that hardware-centric approach no longer good. So in short, we must decouple hardware & software to make sure that we are able to survive as an industry in Europe.

Dominic de Kerf

Plant Systems and Controls COE

As a university, we’re committed to preparing the future workforce by aligning our curriculum with industry needs. Our courses, developed in collaboration with industry partners, blend cutting-edge theory with practical experience. With Universal Automation leading the next wave of industrial transformation through IT convergence and digitalization, our membership empowers us to stay at the forefront and drive this change in Australia.

Dr. Octavian Bass

Senior Lecturer - Electrical Engineering

At our hydro plants, we’re modernizing technology from the 1950s. UAO’s IEC 61499 standard lets us decouple software from hardware and build reusable function libraries across assets. This shift to a function-first approach is a game-changer, and our teams quickly embraced it. We're excited to unify diverse machines and PLCs under one standard.

Laurent Bacon

Head of Industrial Information and Control

UniversalAutomation.org marks a new era in automation technology, set to transform software development over the next five years. We're proud to contribute to the “plug and produce” vision, supporting flexible manufacturing. As more members join and embrace collaboration and openness, industry-wide change is inevitable.

Dmitrii Drozdov

Chief Technology Officer at Flexbridge

Open automation like UAO helps us deliver innovative systems faster and more affordably—boosting manufacturing efficiency and accelerating green solutions. We're starting with IEC 61499 to build on existing tech, and long-term, better integration across OEMs will be transformative. If you're tired of being locked into costly, outdated PLC platforms—UAO is the way forward.

David Campain

Global Product Manager, Process Control Systems

I joined UAO because by being open, by being an international standard, by being already supported by quite a certain number of relevant companies, it paves the way for a new generation of not just automation systems, but a new way of conceiving automation systems. Because in the end it leaves behind the problem of hardware and unleashes the power of software, which has not yet happened in automation.

Franco Cavadini

Chief Technical Officer

As a teacher in Electrical Engineering, I believe it’s vital to expose students to future-ready technologies. Today’s hardware-centric automation limits flexibility and interoperability, making evolution costly and complex. In contrast, IEC 61499 enables software-centric, open automation that bridges OT and IT, supporting agile, data-driven industry needs. INSA Lyon joined UniversalAutomation.org to give students hands-on experience with this modern, interoperable approach.

Mady Guillemot

Professor and Researcher

Joining UniversalAutomation.org provides the collaborative and open ecosystem we have been looking for to advance industrial automation. With our work on IEC 61499 and the open-source project Eclipse 4diac, we aim to support the adoption of standards and technologies that enable seamless connectivity, data exchange, and innovation across industrial automation systems.

Dr. Alois Zoitl

Univ.-Prof. Johannes Kepler University Linz

We prefer systems built on open standards over vendor-locked solutions. IEC 61499 opens up our architecture and makes it future-ready, helping avoid obsolescence and giving us the freedom to choose the best vendors. UAO not only provides the standard—it delivers a robust implementation through a quality-driven, guarded-source community.

Sølve Raaen

Principal Architect OT

Our customers want open systems—and so do we. With IEC 61499, one interface works across all controllers, making integration easier and more flexible. You can mix systems across locations and they’ll still work together. While process automation has been conservative, a new tech-savvy generation is embracing change. After 20 years in the field, this is the most exciting shift I’ve seen.

Andre Fritsch

Senior Product Manager

Penguin Solutions is proud to support open, vendor-independent automation through UniversalAutomation.org. UAO’s open approach lets users choose the best hardware-software combinations, backed by reliable, secure platforms with virtualization and fault tolerance. Our membership helps businesses scale, innovate, and accelerate time to market across multi-vendor environments.

Rudy de Anda

Head of Strategic Alliances

At UFRN, joining Universal Automation reflects our commitment to advancing next-generation industrial automation. We see IEC 61499 as key to enabling openness and flexibility in industry, and our long-standing partnership with Smar strengthens this vision. Through this membership, we aim to drive innovation, connect academia with industry, and help shape the digital future.

André Maitelli

Professor

At the University of León, the SUPPRESS Research Group focuses on automation, control, and advanced monitoring of industrial processes. We integrate IEC61499 into our curriculum and apply data-driven strategies and industrial cybersecurity in our research to support the future of Universal Automation.

Manuel Domínguez González

Director of the SUPPRESS research group

I joined UniversalAutomation.Org to be part of a vibrant community that fosters collaboration between academia and industry. UAO offers a unique platform for networking, learning from global experts, and sharing our research and technical insights to help shape the future of open automation. It’s an exciting opportunity to contribute to a movement that values openness, innovation, and collective progress.

Mohsen Yahyaei

Professor

We operate several thousand third-party installations, so we find ourselves with a large volume of equipment from different brands. This requires great complexity of skills to maintain them. This is why the association’s approach interests us greatly: to simplify the multi-vendor complexity. Pooling the skills of our employees on a limited number of platforms is a guarantee of operational efficiency, and a vector of success for the dissemination of standards.

Michel Arroyo

Operations and Performance Director

Wood is excited to be part of defining the future of automation and transforming profitability and productivity for the customers in our industrial markets. UniversalAutomation.org technology will enable business innovation, increase digital adoption and agility with its open, interoperable and portable solutions- building business resiliency and empowering our clients to be future-ready.

German Carmona

Global President of Wood’s Digital Consulting business

Michel Arroyo - Veolia - Operations and Performance Director

Live

17.10.2025

Automating Well Barrier Tests with IEC 61499

Event

30.09.2025

Rewrite the future of Automation – by UniversalAutomation.org

Event

30.09.2025

Innovation Summit North America 2025

UniversalAutomation.org Privacy notice

We commit to serve you with care, consideration, and respect and to protect your privacy and personal information.

1 – Who is in charge of data processing?

UniversalAutomation.org is responsible for your personal data. The UniversalAutomation.org official address is Botanic Tower, 6th floor, Blvd St. Lazare 4-10. UniversalAutomation.org is organized as an international, non-profit organization.

2 – What types of personal information do we process?

The personal data we collect may include:

Contact information, such as your name, job title, postal address, including your home address, where you have provided this to us, business address, telephone number, mobile phone number, fax number and email address;
Payment data, such as data necessary for processing payments and fraud prevention, including credit/debit card numbers, security code numbers and other related billing information;
Further business information necessarily processed in a committee or participation relationship with UniversalAutomation.org or voluntarily provided by you, such as instructions given, payments made, requests and projects;
Your password for the UniversalAutomation.org website or other password protected platforms or services, where you have one;
Information collected from publicly available resources;
Special categories of personal data. In connection with the registration for and provision of access to an event or seminar, we may ask for information about your health for the purpose of identifying and being considerate of any disabilities or special dietary requirements you may have. Any use of such information is based on your consent. If you do not provide any such information about disabilities or special dietary requirements, we will not be able to take any respective precautions;
Other personal data regarding your preferences where it is relevant to the standardization services that we provide.
From time to time, it may include personal data about your membership of a professional or trade association or union, health personal data, details of dietary preferences when relevant to events to which we invite you and details of any criminal record you may have.

3 – How do we collect your personal data?

We may collect personal data about you in a number of circumstances, including

When you or your organization seek technical documents or brochures;
When you or your organization browse, make an enquiry or otherwise interact on our website;
When you attend a seminar or another UniversalAutomation.org event or sign up to receive personal data from us; or
When you or your organization offer to provide or provide services to us.
In some circumstances, we collect personal data about you from a third-party source. For example, we may collect personal data from your organization, other organizations with whom you have dealings, government agencies, an information or service provider or from a publicly available record.

4 – Are you required to provide personal data?

As a general principle, you will provide us with your personal data entirely voluntarily; there are generally no detrimental effects for you if you choose not to consent or to provide personal data. However, there are circumstances in which UniversalAutomation.org cannot take action without certain of your personal data, for example because this personal data is required to process your instructions or orders, provide you with access to a web offering or newsletter or to carry out a legally required compliance screening. In these cases, it will unfortunately not be possible for us to provide you with what you request without the relevant personal data and we will notify you accordingly.

5 – For which purposes will we us your personal data?

We may use your personal data for the following purposes only (“Permitted Purposes“):

Providing services or things you may have requested, including on-line, technology services or solutions as instructed or requested by you or your organization;
Managing and administering your or your organization’s business relationship with UniversalAutomation.org, including processing payments, accounting, auditing, billing and collection, support services;
Compliance with our legal obligations (such as record keeping obligations), compliance screening or recording obligations (e.g. under antitrust laws, export laws, trade sanction and embargo laws, for anti-money laundering, financial and credit check and fraud and crime prevention and detection purposes), which may include automated checks of your contact data or other information you provide about your identity against applicable sanctioned-party lists and contacting you to confirm your identity in case of a potential match or recording interaction with you which may be relevant for compliance purposes;
To analyze and improve our services and communications to you;
Protecting the security of and managing access to our premises, IT and communication systems, online platforms, websites and other systems, preventing and detecting security threats, fraud or other criminal or malicious activities;
For insurance purposes;
For monitoring and assessing compliance with our policies and standards;
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and requests anywhere in the world, including reporting to and/or being audited by national and international regulatory bodies;
To comply with court orders and exercises and/or defend our legal rights; and
For any purpose related and/or ancillary to any of the above or any other purpose for which your personal data was provided to us.
Where you have expressly given us your consent, we may process your personal data also for the following purposes:
Communicating with you through the channels you have approved to keep you up to date on the latest technology and marketing developments, announcements, and other information about UniversalAutomation.org services, products and technologies (including newsletters and other information) as well as UniversalAutomation.org events and projects;
Customer surveys, marketing campaigns, market analysis, contests or other promotional activities or events; or
Collecting information about your preferences to create a user profile to personalize and foster the quality of our communication and interaction with you (for example, by way of newsletter tracking or website analytics).
With regard to marketing-related communication, we will – where legally required – only provide you with such information after you have opted in and provide you the opportunity to opt out anytime if you do not want to receive further marketing-related communication from us. We will not use your personal data for taking any automated decisions affecting you or creating profiles other than described above.
Depending on for which of the above Permitted Purposes we use your personal data, we may process your personal data on one or more of the following legal grounds:
Because processing is necessary for the performance of your instructions or other contract with you or your organization;
To comply with our legal obligations (e.g. to keep records for tax purposes); or
Because processing is necessary for purposes of our legitimate interest or those of any third-party recipients that receive your personal data, provided that such interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.
In addition, the processing may be based on your consent where you have expressly given that to us.

6 – Personal data about other people which you provide to us

If you provide personal data to us about someone else (such as one of your directors or employees, or someone with whom you have business dealings) you must ensure that you are entitled to disclose that personal data to us and that, without our taking any further steps, we may collect, use and disclose that personal data as described in this Privacy Policy. In particular, you must ensure the individual concerned is aware of the various matters detailed in this Privacy Policy, as those matters relate to that individual, including our identity, how to contact us, our purposes of collection, our personal data disclosure practices (including disclosure to overseas recipients), the individual’s right to obtain access to the personal data and make complaints about the handling of the personal data, and the consequences if the personal data is not provided (such as our inability to provide services).

7 – Transfering your personal data abroad

UniversalAutomation.org is a global association. We may transfer your personal data abroad if required for the Permitted Purposes as described above. This may include countries which do not provide the same level of protection as the laws of your home country (for example, the laws within the European Economic Area or Australia). We will ensure that any such international transfers are made subject to appropriate or suitable safeguards as required by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 or other relevant laws. This includes entering into the EU Standard Contractual Clauses which are available here. You may contact us anytime using the contact details below if you would like further information on such safeguards.

We will require our agents, consultants and sub-contractors and others who are outside the European Economic Area or Australia and to whom we transfer your personal data to ensure a level of data protection at least as protective as that required in the European Economic Area and Australia.

When doing so we will comply with applicable data protection requirements and take appropriate safeguards to ensure the security and integrity of your personal data.

8 – How long do we keep your personal information?

We keep information as needed to perform the purposes described above, taking into consideration the need to provide the services, marketing requirements, security requirements, legal requirements and statute of limitations.

9 – Who do we share personal information with and where is it processed?

Personal information will be processed by our affiliates and suppliers involved in the provision of the services and in the performance of the purposes described in Section 5. We take measures to ensure that personal information receives an adequate level of protection. We do not sell your personal information.
Our affiliates and suppliers provide service including hosting and maintenance, performance monitoring and security. As we are a global association, teams and suppliers may have global or multi-country roles, and they can be located anywhere in the world, in countries with different privacy standards than the country of our customers.
We may also share your information, as necessary :

with competent authorities, based on a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to respond to a judicial process, a valid official inquiry, or if otherwise required by law;
to defend our legal rights, or to protect the rights or safety of any person or entity;
as instructed by you;
with third parties in the context of reorganization of operations.

Google Analytics

The service includes Google Analytics, a Google service which provides us with information about how you use the mobile and the web applications. Google publishes information about its use of information at https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/partner-sites
Google Analytics features are used to understand how often functionalities are used.

10 – How do we secure personal information?

We will take appropriate technical and organizational measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure in accordance with our internal procedures covering the storage, disclosure of and access to personal data. Personal data may be kept on our personal data technology systems, those of our contractors or in paper files.

However, no method of transmission over the internet or of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11 – How to exercise your choices and rights about your personal information?

To exercise the data protection rights granted under applicable data protection law, such as the rights to be informed, to access, to rectify, to withdraw consent, to request restriction or erasure, the right to object and data portability, you may make a request at data.privacy@universalautomation.org. To ensure the security of your personal information, we may ask you to provide other details to verify your identity.
You may address questions or comments about our privacy practices or this privacy notice to the following e-mail address: data.privacy@universalautomation.org or at:

UniversalAutomation.org AISBL

Botanic Tower
6th floor, Blvd St. Lazare 4-10.

If you believe that we have processed your personal information in violation of applicable law, you may file a complaint using the e-mail address stated above or, the contact details above or with a supervisory authority.

We reserve the right to charge you a reasonable administrative fee for any manifestly unfounded or excessive requests concerning your access to your data, and for any additional copies of the personal data you request from us.
We will consider any requests or complaints which we receive and provide you with a response in a timely manner. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may take your complaint to the relevant privacy regulator. We will provide you with details of your relevant regulator upon request

12 – Updates to this privacy policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated in November 2021. We reserve the right to update and change this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to reflect any changes to the way in which we process your personal data or changing legal requirements. In case of any such changes, we will post the changed Privacy Policy on our website or publish it otherwise. The changes will take effect as soon as they are posted on this website.

Membership

Plug & Produce

Application Portability & Interoperability

IT/OT Convergence

Vendors

Users

Pricing for Vendors and Users

Startups

Academics

Contact us

News & Events

Automating Well Barrier Tests with IEC 61499

Rewrite the future of Automation – by UniversalAutomation.org

Innovation Summit North America 2025