Centro Ricerche FIAT (CRF) is an industrial organisation which has the mission of promoting, developing and transferring innovation in order to provide competitiveness to its clients and partners which include the different companies in the FIAT Group, automotive suppliers, companies from other sectors of industry, SMEs, and national and international research agencies.

CRF attains this objective by focussing on: the development of innovative products, the implementation of new processes (manufacturing and organisational), the development of advanced methodologies, consultancy and the training of human resources. Priority areas of R&D at CRF include Energy and the Environment, Safety and Well-Being, and Sustainable Growth.

The core competence of CRF is centred on land transportation: advanced vehicles and propulsion systems, innovative components with associated manufacturing processes and methodologies for product development. In developing and applying these core competencies, considerable emphasis is placed on the transfer of advanced technologies from automotive applications to other sectors of industry and areas of business. In this context, CRF actively supports the technological growth of SMEs working outside the arena of the automotive industry in fields which range from business process re-engineering, advanced product and process methodologies, to micromechanics and optics, IT methodologies, telematics and others.

CRF currently has approximately 980 employees and is organised in the following principal technical divisions: Engines, Vehicles, Electronic and Electrical Systems, Business Information Technologies, Advanced Product/Process Technologies, Micro- and Nanotechnologies, and Telematic Applications. The state-of-the-art facilities include: electromagnetic-compatibility chambers, anechoic and hemi-anechoic cells, NVH laboratories, optoelectronics and microtechnologies laboratories, engine, fluid dynamics, rapid prototyping, computed tomography, virtual reality, etc.

In order to cover a relatively broad spectrum of technologies, CRF has developed a global network of contacts comprising national and international research institutes, private and public research organisations, universities and companies through the promotion of common research activities, associations, conferences and seminars, mobility and exchanges of researchers, etc. Increasingly over recent years, CRF has been an active participant in national projects (MIUR, CNR, Italian Ministry of the Environment), regional projects, the EUREKA programme and in over 200 projects with the R&D programmes of the European Union.