National mobilization within the transportarea för Horizon 2020

Purpose and goal

The objective is to find routes to increase participation in H2020 and ERA-NET by in Sweden active stake holders, prepared to co-finance R&I and implement results obtained, especially outside the vehicle area. The project is run by Closer, the national platform for initiation and coordination of R&I-projects in transport. There is a need for goals and support actions with different time perspectives: call support, identification and transfer of road maps and topics to EC, national policies, and project embryo set up. Progress has been made but there is a need for a continuous effort.

Results and expected effects

Sweden needs transport effectiveness. Participation in European R&I projects often gives a financial leverage of a factor 10 or more. Furthermore the total expert pool becomes larger and more diversified. This leverage and critical mass is normally not possible to obtain in Sweden. Sippers, logistic companies, forwarders, vehicle and load carrier operators, infrastructure and vehicle suppliers, etc can be integrated in the projects. This project results indirectly in the availability of useful results that can lead to improved effectivenes, new products and employment.

Approach and implementation

No useful analysis of the Swedish transport R&I system was found. Present analysis of what needs to be done has been performed from inside the system in parallell with actions taken to increase its ability to improve EU research participation. It builds upon identified difficulties and more than 30 years expereinces from work in the vehicle area. The lack of active stake holders is comparatively large. Reasons seems to include: lack of shippers, forwarders, and operators running R&I, pressed economic operator margins, weak financing and sub critical basic academic research.