Almost traditionally linked to the International Trade Fair for Transport Technology – INNOTRANS – the members of the UIC IRRB met for a plenary meeting in Berlin. The meeting again was held at the Hotel “Die Alte Feuerwache”, originally an old pre-war fire-depot.
Among the issues reviewed – all of global importance – were topics such as the UIC “Global Debate on Mobility Challenges for Future Society”, which will be held in Warsaw, Poland on 15 and 16 November 2018, hosted by the Polish Rail Research Institute IK. The Debate will focus on the following areas:
- New mobility system concepts
- Towards an integrated transport system
- IT – new opportunities and threats
- Competitiveness of transport stakeholders
- Sustainability and resilience of the transport system
The participants agreed on the programme lay-out as well as on the proposed key-note speakers. A draft list of speakers for the five thematic sessions was also presented. Some of them are well known railway experts while others have their expertise in other modes of transport or even beyond transport. The outcome of the discussions and debate will contribute to the update of the UIC GVRD report – the Global Vision for Railway Development – which will be due during the latter part of 2019.
To register for this important UIC event, please visit the dedicated website: https://events.uic.org/global-debate-on-mobility-challenges-for-future-society The event will be held at the InterContinental Hotel in Warsaw city centre. A special rate for participants of the Global Debate will apply until 1 October. Register soon to benefit from this special rate.
Note that on the day preceding the Global Debate, 14 November, UIC is organising yet another interesting event at the same venue: the UIC 1st door-to-door solutions workshop – Business to business opportunities for a sustainable urban mobility”. To register, please follow this link:
https://events.uic.org/uic-1st-door-to-door-solutions-workshop -
Mr Guven Kandemir, IRRB Vice-chairman, gave a very interesting presentation about his work within the task of describing the challenges the railways will have to face in the future and the priorities for research and innovation. The findings were based on an ongoing analysis of many important research projects, policy documents and research and innovation roadmaps. Following this, the Czech members, representing CD-VUZ gave an update on the developments of the WORC database containing global information on research institutes, their fields of expertise and their projects. A demo version is on line and can be found through a link from the UIC Research Portal www.railway-research.org or directly through
http://www.rworc.org/WORC4_test1/.
UIC members are invited to check out this database and if possible to upload information regarding their research capacity and expertise.
UIC Global Rail Research & Innovation Awards 2018 – closing date prolonged until 15 October 2018!
Following a short discussion and requests in this direction, it was decided to prolong the closing date of the Call for submissions for the 4th edition of the UIC Global Research & Innovation Awards. The Awards ceremony will be held on the occasion of the UIC General Assembly in Paris on 6 December. Railway researchers will now be able to upload information about their innovative research projects for the 6 thematic Awards as well as for the Young Researchers Award 2018 using the following link: http://uic-innovation-awards.org/.
A Call for Sponsors has at the same time been opened and a sponsorship package describing the various way to support the Global Awards and their winners can be requested at the email contact mentioned below. Two organisations – JR RTRI and KRRI – have already informed the IRRB of their wish to act as Award sponsors!
Other interesting topics on the agenda were for instance an overview of recent innovation within RZD Russian Railways, presented by Prof. Efim Rosenberg of NIIAS as well as a presentation on the innovative topic of “Horizon Scanning” by IRRB members Sharon Odetunde and Claire Shooter of RSSB, conducted in close cooperation with ACRI from Australia. Remember also to consult the UIC dedicated webpages www.railway-research.org – the UIC Railway Research Portal, with ist many links to among others the SPARK research database, the Australian Rail Knowledge Bank and the above mentioned WORC test-webpage.
