February saw the launch and kick-off of STREnGth_M project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Programme. The project, whose full name is Stimulating road Transport Research in Europe and around the Globe for sustainable Mobility, will contribute to the planning of research and innovation in Europe by identifying future research needs in the field of road transport, by updating and supporting the coordination of strategic research agendas and roadmaps and by facilitating sustainable exchange between road transport research related partnerships, programmes and platforms.
The project supports ERTRAC (the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council) and European partnerships including 2Zero (Towards zero emission road transport), CCAM (Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility Partnership, https://www.ccam.eu) and BATT4EU (Batteries European Partnership). It supports road transport research at EU level and will strengthen the link with national and sub-national programmes and research roadmaps in EU Member States and beyond.
The project will facilitate the definition of pathways on societal, economic and scientific terms leading to a wider impact of European road transport research, in terms of meeting the needs of citizens, the environment, safety and European competitiveness. The collaboration with other road transport-related national and international organisations and initiatives will be essential to exploit the full potential of the networks, fostering exploitation and take-up of results and lessons learnt from research projects.
Over the next three years, ERTICO will support the STREnGth_M project as one of the project’s 24 partners, in particular working on mapping national research programmes in the EU and creating and managing a Multiplier Group to support the project.
The STREnGth_M coordinator is AVL, in Graz, Austria. Other industry partners are Bosch, Ricardo, Valeo, BMW, CRF (Stellantis), Volkswagen, Volvo, ELES and Gruber Logistics.
Research centres and consultancies in the project are VDI/VDE Innovation+Technik, Rupprecht Consult, Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI) and FIER Sustainable Mobility.
University partners are Chalmers Industriteknik (SAFER), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and RWTH Aachen University.
Associations and platforms are well represented with (in addition to ERTICO) POLIS, UITP, FEHRL and the European Technology Platform ALICE. Finally, there are two partners in Kenya: the NGO UN-Habitat and the non-profit Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).
