ERA-NET ROAD Information
ERA-NET ROAD II aims to strengthen the European Research Area in road research by coordinating national and regional road research programmes and policies. The eleven National Road Administrations active in the first ERA-NET ROAD have broadened their Consortium to include four more National Road Administrations (France, Ireland, Hungary and Lithuania), one Regional Road Administration (Flanders) and programme managers in Austria, France, Lithuania and Slovenia, to bring together the road research programmes they own and manage. Jointly, they will promote, develop and facilitate collaborative trans-national programming, financing and procurement of road research, building on the success of ERA-NET ROAD.
The ERA-NET ROAD II consortium comprises fifteen national road administrations (one of which is represented by a delegated agency, KTI, Hungary), five programme managers (LCPC and ISTED France; FFG Austria, VGTU Lithuania and ZAG Slovenia), which have been delegated to manage road research programmes, and one regional road administration (AWV Belgium). The national and regional road administrations are all programme owners and are responsible for the development and management of the strategic road research programmes in their countries. The delegated agency and programme managers implement their national road research programmes under the supervision of the national road administrations.
The ERA-NET ROAD project which was funded over the years 2005 to 2008 under the Sixth Framework Programme made considerable progress towards the networking of road research programmes across Europe. In terms of the Commission’s four step approach, ERA-NET ROAD has addressed:
- information exchange between national owners of road research programmes
- definition and preparation of joint activities
- implementation of joint activities
- funding of joint trans-national research.
ERA-NET ROAD II will build on the work done to-date, in particular focusing on (3.) and (4.).
The overall objectives of ERA-NET ROAD II are to:
- embed the culture of collaborative road research in the partners’ organisations
- further broaden collaborative road research beyond the current fifteen countries and two regions
- establish a permanent structure that will take forward the European Research Area for road research after completion of the project
- pave the way towards achieving an expenditure of 10% of the research budget of the National Road Administrations on trans-nationally funded collaborative research by 2013
- liaise with other public and private stakeholders in transport research programming in Europe.
