TRA VISIONS 2020: Strengthening European transport research

Alistair Greig and Matina Loukea, Project Partners at TRA VISIONS 2020 explain the importance of strengthening the European transport research

Transport is a cornerstone of European integration and is strongly connected to the promotion of economic growth and it is a sector that concerns us all as it affects the everyday lives of all European Union (EU) citizens and companies. EU transport policy of the 21st century must address the challenges the sector is facing, by proposing solutions that minimise negative effects, as well as revealing and promoting all available potentials for transport to further enhance its contribution to growth and jobs in the EU.

TRA VISIONS Competitions have in recent years, become an institution aiming at precisely this; to enhance the competitiveness of the EU Transportation sector by achieving the development and wider dissemination of a wealth of innovative ideas, essential for the competitiveness of the European transport industry and also necessary for addressing current and future mobility challenges related to energy, connected and automated vehicles, safety and security, human capital and other key trends and issues.

The concept of the TRA VISIONS projects, which are being successfully implemented since 2014 in close relation to the respective TRA Conferences, is to organise two competitions for Transport Research Awards that are announced during a dedicated ceremony at the TRA Conferences, with the participation of representatives of the whole transport community, namely:

• A competition for young researchers with the goal to stimulate the interest among young researchers/students in the field of sustainable transport.
• A competition for senior researchers based on results from EU-funded projects.

The competitions of TRA VISIONS 2020 have five modes of transport; road, rail, waterborne, air and also cross-modality. The main objective is to continue and enhance the success of the previous TRA VISIONS competitions by achieving the following:

For the young researchers:

• To nurture the best transport researchers in Europe;
• To promote the alignment of their interests with those of transport industry stakeholders.

For the senior researchers:

To promote and acknowledge the leaders in generating impactful research in transport in the EU.

Senior Researchers Competition

The Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2020 Conference will be the fourth time that the Senior Researcher Competition is run. The TRA VISIONS Senior Researcher Competition acts as a showcase for the very best EU-funded research and aims to recognise the current and future leaders in the field, as it recognises and celebrates leading researchers who are or have recently been, contributing to transport-related EU-funded projects.

The Senior Researchers Competition concept is to have an excellence award for leading transport researchers engaged with EU-funded projects, who can demonstrate proven impacts in their field. This competition provides a platform that facilitates:

• Efficient dissemination of knowledge and results from innovation and/or research projects in the transport sector;
• The promotion of future synergies and;
• Further development of pioneering ideas in line with the strategic objectives of the TRA stakeholders.

Both TRA VISIONS competitions and project final results increase European competitive advantage, while it has been proved that they inspire the research community to propose innovative projects and the industry to adopt these.

Click here to find out more about the Senior Researcher Competition.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 824293.

Project Insights

Funding

TRA VISIONS 2020 has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 824293.

Consortium partners

WEGEMT, the Netherlands; Balance Technology Consulting GmbH, Germany; Deepblue SRL, Italy; Centre for Research & Technology HELLAS, Greece; VTI – Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, Sweden; University College London, UK; VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Finland; FEHRL – Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories, Belgium and the European Conference of Transport Research Institutes, Belgium.

George Smyrnakis

Project Coordinator
info@travisions.eu
https://www.travisions.eu/

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