Setting up of a European Strategic Research Agenda on climate-friendly transport

Research funding and innovation processes are key instruments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport. This paper presents a contribution to the development of a European strategy on climate-friendly transport research funding. A Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) was set up, in order to define research priorities, develop future roadmaps, and suggest targets that can be actually achieved in the field of climate friendly transport. The SRA future vision is inspired by the EU strategic objectives towards 2020, e.g. shares the same targets for carbon reduction. The SRA has been built taking into account the current EU research programs on transport and mobility, analyzing the research agendas of selected European Technologies Platforms, and considering the points of view of different stakeholders (market players, academics, policy makers) through a consultation process. The SRA considers all the research areas in transportation that tackle the GHG emission problem, considering not only research on technology but also on policy, economy and social issues. The identification of the most promising research areas is expected to support EU to understand what are the research topics strategically recommendable to be financed in the next decades.