Support for the organisation of EU-US symposia in the field of Transport Research The main objective of the SYMPEUS CSA is to strengthen collaboration in transport research between the EU and the US. The project is closely working with the EC in organising four EU-US Transport Research Symposia: in Washington DC (2024, 2026), in Brussels (2025, 2027). The project will support the symposia participation of the European transport community and will work together with DG RTD and DG MOVE for managing these 3-day events in terms of organisation, content development, reporting. At each event, 25 experts from EU and US, respectively, will discuss and elaborate R&I recommendations on a theme agreed between the EC and US DoT. SYMPEUS will involve and collaborate with all relevant European actors – researchers, industry, users, innovation leaders, etc., and consult key transport players including European Technology Platforms in transport and relevant Horizon Europe partnerships. For each symposium SYMPEUS’s will: • Define overall planning on the EU side (preparation, execution, dissemination of the symposia) • Consult with stakeholders to identify EU expert candidates, to be proposed to the EC, • Manage expert invitations, registrations, travel costs reimbursements, • Prepare communication material, • Provide support in drafting of preparatory documents, design of symposia, programme, • Offer facilitation for the symposium and its break-out sessions. • Provide support in editing, quality management, dissemination of the conference proceedings reports. Additionally, for the two symposia to be held in Brussels, SYMPEUS will manage the overall local organisation including selecting and covering costs for venue, catering and logistics. The lump sum project is managed by a consortium of 3 organisations with complementary competences, experiences and structures: VTI (Swedish public institute), ECTRI (European association) and VDI/VDE-IT (German private research agency).

The CSA RIS4Danu proposes a series of concerted actions over 24 months to elaborate strategic business development plans for the re-opening of 21 disused industrial sites in the Danube Macro-Region, an area that stretches from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. The project directly connects to the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), a macro-regional strategy to address common economic and societal challenges and create synergies and coordination between existing policies and initiatives. Danube neighbouring states share a proud and centuries-old history of manufacturing and industrial production, yet political upheavals, globalisation and technological advancements have confronted many Danube regions with the challenges of structural transformation and have triggered the closing down of numerous industrial plants and sites. In many regions, plant closures and the associated displacement of workers caused severe socio-economic effects on workers, local communities and regions. At the heart of the RIS4Danu project is the goal of applying an evidence-based Smart Specialisation (S3) approach to support place-based innovation for green/digital and inclusive transitions in regions along the Danube River. This project ties in with current debates and requests to combine smart specialisation with considerations of socio-ecological challenges such as climate change, environmental issues and growing social and territorial inequality: Smart Specialisation Strategies for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth (S4+). We argue that the re-opening of old industrial sites shows the potential to build transformative resilience in less-favoured Danube regions. These sites could serve as innovation anchors, unleashing opportunities for the entire region to strengthen their capacity to develop innovative solutions to place-specific ecological, social and economic challenges. Project activities include cross-regional peer exchange and a transfer of knowledge along the Danube River.

UNLOCK CEI’s ambition is to UNLOCK the potential for accelerating the deployment of the Cloud-to-Edge-IoT (CEI) computing continuum in Europe by focusing on the demand-side drivers and challenges to identify technology-driven innovation and business opportunities driving demand value chains. The project represents the CEI demand constituency; provide insights and guidance to the Horizon Europe R&D projects in this domain; and contribute to a proactive dialogue with the supply stakeholders to encourage the development of an open European CEI ecosystem. It focuses on emerging value chains where investment is needed to foster the deployment of the Cloud-to-Edge-IoT continuum through the forthcoming CEI large scale pilots. This will ultimately foster European autonomy in the digital economy. The workplan is designed to provide early results to feed into the development of the HE Work Programme in 2023-24 based on the ongoing dialogue with the stakeholder ecosystem. The project pays specific attention to data governance issues, leveraging the relationship with industry-driven initiatives such as Gaia-X and CCAM (Connected, Co-operative & Automated Mobility) partnership. UNLOCK carries out a systematic assessment of the state of the open European CEI ecosystem and develop future market scenarios and related market pathways for the development of the open European CEI ecosystem. It will engage with industry stakeholders representing the most relevant industry value chains in Europe for CEI potential demand and develops a productive and effective interface between the demand constituency and the supply side, including the coordination of HE projects resulting from CL4-2021-DATA-01-05, CL4-2022-DATA-01-02, and CL4-2022-DATA-01-03 and Cluster 3 cybersecurity projects. It finally designs and implement a coordinated communication and dissemination strategy running throughout the lifetime of the project to create awareness about the whole of the European demand-side landscape.

The proposed project “Coherent Support for Mobility.E Strategy” (COSMOS) aims at supporting the ECSEL Lighthouse Initiative Mobility.E in its endeavour to accelerate the deployment of clean and automated road mobility solutions and the realisation of the associated socio-economic benefits. For this purpose, the COSMOS project will assist the Lighthouse Initiative Advisory Service (LIASE) in the continuous identification and prioritisation of research topics and the subsequent translation into an action plan to support roadmap implementation. It will map the Mobility.E ecosystem by comparing the Strategic Research Agendas of ECSEL and of the European Technology Platforms AENEAS, EPoSS and ARTEMIS-IA involved therein with those of stakeholders further down the value chain, such as ERTRAC, EUCAR, CLEPA, and EATA regarding complementarity and coherence, and it will analyse the implementation of these roadmaps into funded projects. This approach shall enable the identification of white spots and gaps and it will reveal the potentials for bridging these with a dedicated implementation plan. This content-related work will be enabled by a set of effective network support measures in terms of stakeholder engagement and collaboration, events and workshops as well as dissemination building an extensive Stakeholder Circle. One of the visible activities supported by COSMOS will be continuation and further development of the ECA 2030 networking events series. The contractual and associated partners of COSMOS are representing the Mobility.E lighthouse projects, the LIASE and the governing board of ECSEL, the editorial team of the “Transport and Smart Mobility” chapter of the ECSEL Joint SRA and further relevant stakeholders. By working together in a coherent manner in processes for strategy development and network support they form a strong backbone of the community to be built for the Mobility.E Lighthouse of ECSEL.