On 23-24 June, the ERTICO’s Innovation and Deployment Department organised its annual Activity Development Days (ADD) exclusively for our 120 members. The purpose of the two-day event was to determine the ERTICO Partnership’s future priorities, especially within the context of the European Commission’s future policy plans and targets.
The agenda was divided into the four focus areas of the ERTICO Partnership: Urban Mobility, Transport and Logistics, Cooperative Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM), and Clean-Eco Mobility, with the first two focus areas discussed on Thursday, 23rd June and the on Friday, 24th June. Each session began with a presentation of the recently approved and publicised ERTICO focus areas Roadmaps, depicting the path towards Sustainable and Smart mobility deployments by the Partnership. The presentations set the scene for discussing the European Commission’s 2023 proposal Calls. The discussion focused on how best to progress the Partnership’s work and update the ERTICO implementation roadmaps toward entirely safe, efficient and decarbonised transport.
In speaking about the EU’s priorities and the strategic outlook, Isabelle Vandoorne, Deputy Head of Unit – DG MOVE, emphasised the fundamental and inextricable link between the Green Deal and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. We have learnt about the intention to cover all the cities in Europe, both large and small towns, through a network of 424 urban nodes, in order to achieve this urban mobility sustainability goals and encourage acceleration in modal shift, the energy efficiency of the transport system and also deployment of electro-mobility solutions.
Several speakers from the European Commission (DG MOVE and DG RTD) presented priorities in Mobility at the four thematic sessions, while CINEA, the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency, shared important information on proposal preparation under the new framework programme of Horizon Europe. The ESA (European Space Agency), CEDR (Conference of European Directors of Roads), SESAR-JU (Single European Sky ATM Research 3 Joint Undertaking) and the European regional funding programme Interreg shared information on other funding opportunities for public and private ERTICO Partners.
The well-attended event was moderated by Vladimir Vorotovic, ERTICO’s Director of Innovation & Deployment and Dr. Johanna Tzanidaki, Chief Innovation Officer, together with 20 of the department’s transport and mobility experts. A total of seven Call topics were discussed, focusing on the 2023 Calls. Although the Horizon Europe Calls will be officially published by the EC very soon, the ERTICO team is already working with Partners on preparing the proposals for the forthcoming Calls, having previously completed the preparatory work, including a survey sent to ERTICO members. As a reminder: last year, ERTICO was active in 20+ EU co-funded projects under the former framework of Horizon 2020. Presently, ERTICO is involved in 24 projects (eight projects from the first year of the Horizon Europe Work Programme launched in 2021) with a total multi-annual project value of more than EUR 310 million, with a number of proposals currently being evaluated, and also being prepared for the latest submission on 6th September 2022.
“Yet again, we have proven the width and breadth of the ERTICO members by having more than 100 participants, representing all eight sectors of the partnership, over the two days of the event. We are very grateful to all of the partners who took part of the programme, and we extend our gratitude to all guests, from the European Commission, CINEA, ESA, SESAR JU, CEDR and Interreg, who shared their insights and funding opportunities which may interest many of our members”, says Vorotovic.
“The ERTICO Partnership, with its unique ability to gather the multiple ITS sectors within its membership, around the table, is able to build the mobility of the future and according to the ERTICO RoadMaps and the ERTICO Vision”, said Dr. Johanna Tzanidaki adding that ERTICO’s thought leadership has already contributed towards the new Horizon Europe Calls expected to be published by the end of the year. ERTICO has been contributing to the work conducted in the various Fora and PPPs supporting the drafting of the Horizon Europe Calls via its active involvement in the CCAM PPP, the 2 Zero, the DTLF and other EC facilitated fora.
