UNIFE PRESENTS SHIFT²RAIL, FP7 EUROPEAN RESEARCH PROJECTS AT THE 2014 TRANSPORT RESEARCH ARENA CONFERENCE

UNIFE, the European Rail Industry Association, presented a number of important FP7 (the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research) projects at the 2014 Transport Arena Conference which is taking place from 14-17 April in Paris. Members of the Cabinet of European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, visited the UNIFE stand on Monday to review the progress being made on the many rail research projects being coordinated by UNIFE and SHIFT²RAIL, on which DG-RTD played a major role in developing.

The UNIFE stand features the SHIFT²RAIL Joint Undertaking for Rail Research which is expected to be approved by the European Parliament today and adopted by the Council of Ministers in June. This project, once launched, will provide no less than €920 million for innovation in rail over the course of six years; with nearly half of the funding provided by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and €470 million provided by the private sector.

Additionally, the UNIFE stand displayed the work being carried out on a number of FP7 projects coordinated by UNIFE, including, Acoutrain, ECUC, Euraxles, Euremco, Marathon, Merlin, NGTC, Osiris, Refresco, and SECUR-ED. Many of these projects are presented over the course of the conference at several of the strategic sessions and at the stand of the European Commission.

In addition to the stand, Philippe Citroën, Director General of UNIFE will present the SHIFT²RAIL initiative at the TRA conference today alongside the leaders of the five SHIFT²RAIL Innovation Programmes (IPs).