Knowledge sharing and dissemination to support road transport R&I in EU and around the world increasing global EU competitiveness

Expected Outcome:Project’s results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Increased participation of actors and stakeholders to EU activities in the area of road transport, also supporting a more coherent and inclusive European alignment in specific identified areas;
• Identified state of the art, requirements and developments, future needs and barriers to foster the deployment of EU R&I results and proposals for action to support the future of the European road transport area R&I, also including skills and standards;
• Identified possible renewed strategy for research infrastructure ecosystems in the Road Transport sector;
• Increased international cooperation on road transport with related national and international organisations and support of international EU activities in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and supporting the competitiveness of the EU industry, in particular the US and the Global South;
• Widespread dissemination of contribution from road transport research, in particular from EU funded projects, focused on the realisation of the European Green Deal, the new European industrial policy, the European Union digital strategy as well as Vision Zero for road safety;
• Knowledge sharing and widely promoted R&I activities, in particular via road transport events to support identification of future requirements, potential developments, white spots and precompetitive activities.

Scope:The objective of this topic is to further promote Research and Innovation (R&I) leading to sustainable road transport in Europe and at an international level. The action is expected to help identify future R&I needs, gather an increased number of innovative actors and stakeholders, stimulate a wider participation to EU activities and support European plus Worldwide dissemination of results and support the identification of possible future actions in view of a renewed European competitiveness. This action shall provide a positive contribution to the European Research Area, as well as to the European strategies for future transport systems and the EU’s collaboration in R&I with international partners. In addition, this initiative will support climate action and air quality improvement in line with the Green Deals targets and objectives, Vision Zero for road safety, contribute to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals as well as the EU’s digital strategy.

In line with these objectives, all the following aspects will need to be addressed:

• Widen and increase the European future road transport R&I environment by providing an enlarged, more innovative and more representative number of interested stakeholders that could currently be less represented in existing European platforms, networks and associations (both geographically and thematically);
• Identification of actions to support the road transport R&I area, e.g. identify state of the art, future and innovative requirements, potential technical developments and white spots, and potential precompetitive activities;
• Identification of in-depth state of the art and barriers for the deployment of EU research results at European and international level, co-development of options to overcome them, including development of innovation plans and analysis of competitiveness issues to support the alignment of European stakeholders in the following specific areas: “Urban zero-emission mobility”, “Improved air quality”, “Future road safety ”, “Zero-emission long-haul logistics” and “Digitalisation of road transport” (including all relevant aspects related to Artificial Intelligence, big data and Software Defined Vehicles);
• Assess the current road transport related research infrastructures (RI) in Europe and, based on this, analyse and identify needs towards a strategy for the establishment of a research infrastructure (RI) ecosystems in the Road Transport sector that addresses EU priorities and strategic autonomy together with the EU’s capacity for excellent research;
• To foster innovation aspects of road transport R&I, at least 4 specific events or workshops will be organised to present, discuss and disseminate the analysed technology needs, trends and results of the above points. In addition, direct support (such as financial, organisational, communication and dissemination) is expected to the annual Road Transport Research Conferences co-organised by the European Commission, ERTRAC, and the 2Zero, CCAM and BATT4EU Partnerships;
• Support the identification and scaling up of activities at an EU level in the fields of education, training and skilling/reskilling and standardisation;
• In the field of international cooperation in line with the UN SDGs and to support the European industrial competitiveness for the future road transport sector: • Following-up the previous EU-US transport research symposia (co-organised by the European Commission) in the specific sectors of “Decarbonisation” and “Digitalisation”, provide a deep analysis of the implementation and evaluation of EU research funded projects and activities to support the alignment with the US (mainly under the DoE and DoT programmes) on technological, societal, systemic and spatial dimensions of R&I in road transport.
• Analyse EU research funded projects and activities related to electromobility in urban areas in emerging economies (specifically in Africa, Asia and Latin America) and support further dissemination and replication of implemented solutions in other regions via specific workshops and events, mainly online. This shall also facilitate the exchange of information of EU actors and projects with key international cooperation programmes such as the Global Gateway and the UN Global Environment Facility (GEF).