200 participants from the scientific transport sector, national and international railway industry and Russian universities of technology
under the auspices of RZD
Moderated by Mr Boris Lapidus, CEO of VNIIZhT and Chairman of IRRB
Two day sessions were dedicated to sharing views among participants seeking solutions to improve railway efficiency through developing the innovative technology to be implemented in the sector.

• Customer-oriented research setting the scientific priorities;
• Planning, funding of the R&D through science management as a business process;
• International cooperation between researchers, universities and international organisations;
• The role of young talented staff in innovative development.

The first day was opened by Mr Vadim Morozov, First Deputy to RZD’s CEO
Mr Marcel Verslype presented ERA as the European agency to be involved in the interoperability of two railway systems (1435/1520 mm gauge) supporting innovative solutions to facilitate railway traffic between Europe and Russia.
Mr Alexey Sokolov, Vice-Chair of Russia’s Scientific Development Council, and other domestic speakers focused on the issue “innovations versus its implementations”.

Mr Jerzy Wisniewski, Director of UIC’s Fundamental Values Department, presented UIC’s approach towards R&D developments as well as IRRB’s priorities inter alia: UIC Research Portal, World Railway Research Award, cooperation between IRRB and WCRR, the extension of IRRB’s membership to a limited number of highly qualified academic and research institutes and standardisation bodies. He also mentioned UIC potentially assisting RZD in participating in European projects via ERRAC.

Afterwards, a press conference was organised; UIC was represented by J. Wisniewski with the participation of Mr B. Lapidus and Mr V. Solovyev. The journalists were interested in concrete results stemming from international cooperation. Mr Lapidus highlighted IRRB’s targets while Mr Solovyev underlined Russia’s priorities in scientific developments. Mr Wisniewski described UIC’s work in various projects, pointed out the comparative study of changeover systems as well as the benefits of UIC members’ joint work on special projects. He also mentioned RZD’s involvement within certain projects partly funded by the EC with possible support from ERRAC.

The next day focused on the issues of cost reduction and boosting of transport efficiency. Various industry and railway institute representatives delivered some presentations on the topic. Among them, the speech given by Dr Jens Engelmann, representing the Vice-Chairman of IRRB, highlighted UIC’s achievements in the projects covered by the Eurasian area with regard to both business (Eurasian corridors development) and technological aspects (e.g. changeover gauge technical solutions).

The concluding remarks were made by Mr Boris Lapidus, who believes that this kind of discussion should continue and promised to boost R&D activities using all possible means to achieve the economic results, and to initiate the relevant actions in order to meet the challenges of the railway sector.