On July 30th, the European commission has published its 3rd call for proposals for the Transport Theme of the 7th Framework program for Research. The invited research project proposals should be submitted by January 14th 2010. There is a budget of roughly 25 Million Euro available for the Rail Research topics within the Transport Theme (including Aeronautics).
The focus for the topics of this 3rd Call is very much set by the European Commission and is based on its Transport Policy and concerns mainly rail freight issues (“moving more freight faster”). The Call text for the Rail topics is strongly based on information provided to the European Commission by ERRAC – the European Rail Research Advisory Council and its ERRAC ROADMAP project, roadmapping the future research priorities for the European Rail system. The UIC is the coordinator for the ROADMAP project and the work is carried out by a number of directly involved UIC members in close cooperation with UNIFE, CER, EIM, UITP, EFRTC, academia, users and Member states. The strong UIC input into the process is coordinated and prepared by the UIC RCG – Research Coordination Group.
The topics which are open for research in the 3rd Call concern important issues as environment (carbon footprint of freight transport, attenuation of ground-borne vibration affecting residents near railway lines etc), fast implementation of innovative/effective rail technologies to improve rail freight services as well as efficient interfaces between transport modes. The Call contains also safety issues (fatigue failure of railway axles as well as safety and security by design in transport stations and terminals), cost savings and infra-structure issues (automated and cost effective railway infrastructure maintenance) and rail freight logistics issues (freight logistics: new technologies and methods to increase freight competitiveness in the emerging low density, high value market as well as development and promotion of best practice in freight logistics).
For most of the topics, consortia are being formed and proposal being prepared. To know more about the UIC activities for the 3rd call for Proposals or to get in contact with developing consortia, please contact the UIC Research Coordination Group: Dennis Schut, EU Research manager at schut at uic.org or +32 2 213 08 32.
All the general and detailed information about the European Commissions FP7 3rd Call for Proposals for the Transport theme you can find through the following link:
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.FP7DetailsCallPage&call_id=238
The next meeting of the RCG will take place at the UIC Brussels meeting facility on September 1st 2009. Any member of UIC interested in Research is welcomed to join the RCG. The main subject on the agenda will be the preparation of the 3rd Call proposals and the research priorities for the 4th call for Proposals for the FP7 Transport theme which will be opened in July 2010.
Please contact the RCG with suggestions for all your research priorities and / or to know more information about the UIC Research Coordination Group (RCG) please contact Dennis Schut, EU Research manager at schut at uic.org or +32 2 213 08 32.
