EUROPEAN REGIONS FOCUS ON INNOVATION IN TRANSPORT

(Coventry, United Kingdom): A new initiative to keep Europe in the forefront of the transport revolution has been launched in Coventry. The INNOTRANS project will map regional transport capacity and innovation over three years in order to develop guidelines for future policy and action plans for investment. Involving five European regions, the project will last five years.

Effective transport is essential to any region’s prosperity. Transport innovators look for opportunities to make better use of existing natural resources and at the same time provide a better services for users. At a time of change driven by new technologies and concern for natural resources there is a need to be innovative to stay competitive.

“Innovation doesn’t just happen. We have to ensure that there is the right environment for it. This means creating the right conditions between all the stakeholders: business, government and research. Collaboration among transport leaders is at the heart of the INNOTRANS project,” says Eleni Anoyrkati, Operations and Development Manager at Coventry University Enterprises Ltd., the lead partner in the project.

Systematic cooperation is an essential element in transport innovation. INNOTRANS will connect and mobilise stakeholders in transport. Searching out and analysing best practices in innovation policy, applying them in the Transport sector and finally changing policy to create the best environment possible to improve innovation in transport.

Together with the lead partner Coventry University Enterprises Ltd, part of one of the most successful universities in the United Kingdom, European regions will create a common knowledge base so that the policy makers could take the right decisions and improve current measures and investment tools.

Thanks to this collaboration of stakeholders and policy players and through analyses of the transport innovation frameworks, good practice in Europe can be identified and knowledge and experiences can be transferred. As a result of the project all participating regions will develop elaborated action policy plans.

However the conditions in the European regions may differ, the experiences are transferable and can create a convenient environment for the initiatives and foster good cooperation between transport industry and academia.

INNOTRANS project, which will receive a financial support from the European Union´s Interreg Europe cooperation programme, follows on from previous projects which analysed the regions' transport innovation potential and suggested recommendations on innovative strategies. INNOTRANS project goes now more in depth of the issue. On the practical level, INNOTRANS will provide Regional Transport Innovation Strategies for each of the participating regions.