Skip to main content

ECTRI speaker ‘anticipates US$111 billion of EU transport research funding’

In a special event attended by more than 100 high level representatives of all sectors of European transport, the European Conference of Transport Research Institutes (ECTRI), recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary Brussels, Belgium. Among the speakers who stressed the importance of ECTRI’s role in European transport research was ECTRI President, Professor George A. Giannopoulos, director of the Hellenic Institute of Transport. He discussed ECTRI’s achievements over the past ten years, in particular: t
October 15, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
In a special event attended by more than 100 high level representatives of all sectors of European transport, the 7515 European Conference of Transport Research Institutes (ECTRI), recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary Brussels, Belgium.

Among the speakers who stressed the importance of ECTRI’s role in European transport research was ECTRI President, Professor George A. Giannopoulos, director of the Hellenic Institute of Transport. He discussed ECTRI’s achievements over the past ten years, in particular: the base line scientific work done by the many ECTRI working Groups in several scientific fields and the more than forty position papers and interventions that ECTRI has put forward on key issues facing European transport; the setting up and running of training workshops and courses for young researchers; the creation and continuous support of a major scientific journal in the field of Transport (the European Transport Research Review); and the promotion of international cooperation and European transport know how and research results globally.

Speakers included Fotis Karamitsos, acting deputy director general at the 1690 European Commission/5578 DG Move, who spoke of the influence of research and innovation for future transport policy and stressed that the current European Transport Policy that was unveiled in 2011 has as its cornerstone the research and innovation that comes from the various national and international research programmes in Europe as well as the Commission’s own research programme Horizon 2020.

Other speakers included Mrs Manuela Soares, director for transport at the European Commission/DG RDI, who said that as much as US$111 billion of EU funding is anticipated over the next seven years for transport research; Robert Skinner, executive Director of the 856 Transportation Research Board of the US National Academies; and Stephen Perkins, Head of Research, 998 International Transport Forum, OECD.  ECTRI’s vice-president, Professor Neil Paulley, presented ECTRI’s future vision and stressed the need for closer cooperation and more forward thinking research focused on solving key policy challenges.

Related Content

  • Europe’s EasyWay project accommodates political requirements
    May 29, 2013
    The EasyWay project has evolved to take account of political developments at the European level. By Jason Barnes The European Union’s (EU’s) EasyWay ITS deployment project has its roots in the ambitions of former European Commission President Jacques Delors with regard to truly international networks for energy, information and for transport. Definition of what became known as the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) began back in 1994 with seven working groups. They produced an R&D and policy framework
  • EU releases first transport infrastructure funds
    April 8, 2014
    Following its decision in March to make the first US$16.4 billion tranche of funding available for trans-European transport network projects, the European commission has now adopted the first work programmes within this framework: a multi-annual work programme covering larger projects with a total budget of US$15.1 billion and an annual work programme for 2014 addressing smaller projects with a budget of US1.3 billion. The funding priorities set out in these programmes include: The closing of missing lin
  • 2015 a milestone for EU Road Safety Action Programme
    December 22, 2014
    The workshop to discuss the preparation of the interim evaluation of the Road Safety Action Programme 2011-2020, organised by the European Commission's Road Safety Unit, was attended by the main stakeholders involved in road safety, including the European Road Federation (ERF).
  • First EU-US Interoperability Centre opens
    July 22, 2013
    The first of the twin centres designed to promote common standards in electric mobility and smart grids on both sides of the Atlantic has been inaugurated at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. The second Centre will be opened in the EU, at the JRC sites in Petten, The Netherlands and Ispra, Italy, in 2014. The launch follows eighteen months of dedicated work following the letter of intent for closer co-operation, signed by the JRC, the European Commission's in-hous