EUROPE: The Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking has awarded €232·8m of co-funding for six research and innovation projects with a total value of €568·4m following its first call for proposals.
The Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking has succeeded the previous Shift2Rail programme. A second call for proposals covering exploratory research and other activities is to be launched by the end of September, and will be followed by others on an annual basis.
Announcing the first awards on September 9, Carlo Borghini, ERJU Executive Director, said convergence towards a ‘seamless, resilient, interoperable, sustainable and efficient’ rail network will require the sector to ‘work together, reinvent itself and leverage its strengths with a user-centric approach in mind’.
He said the projects being funded ’do exactly this — they bring together the European rail sector and allow it to transform itself through an integrated system approach that will benefit the European passengers and supply chain, and answer to EU policy objectives’.
Henrik Hololei, Director-General for Mobility & Transport at the European Commission, added that he was ‘pleased to see that the very first call from Europe’s Rail has attracted good quality projects that will modernise rail and deliver a genuine Single European Rail Area’.
| Proposal number | Acronym | Title | Co-ordinating organisation | Country co-ordinator | Duration (months) | Total eligible cost, € | EU contribution, € |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101101973 | MOTIONAL | MObility managemenT multImodal envirOnment aNd digitAl enabLers | Hacon | Germany | 46 | 63 721 648 | 38 165 436 |
| 101102001 | R2DATO | Rail to Digital automated up to autonomous train operation | SNCF | France | 42 | 127 409 114 | 53 904 132 |
| 101101966 | IAM4RAIL | holistic and Integrated Asset Management for Europe’s RAIL system | ADIF | Spain | 48 | 77 042 816 | 46 225 689 |
| 101101917 | Rail4EARTH | Sustainable and green rail systems | Alstom | France | 48 | 63 977 324 | 38 386 394 |
| 101102009 | TRANS4M-R | Transforming Europe’s Rail Freight | Deutsche Bahn | Germany | 45 | 67 929 487 | 40 599 047 |
| 101101962 | FutuRe | Delivering Innovative rail services to revitalise capillary lines and Regional rail services | Faiveley Transport | France | 48 | 25 788 685 | 15 484 001 |
