Final Report Summary - INTRAREGIO (Towards an Intermodal Transport Network through innovative research-driven clusters in Regions of organised and competitive knowledge)
Executive Summary:
Transport is fundamental to our economy and society. Mobility is vital for the internal market and for the quality of life of citizens as they enjoy their freedom to travel. Transport enables economic growth and job creation, but to make better use of existing transport modes (road, rail, sea and air) breakthroughs are required in intermodal transport. Intermodal transport can improve the benefits of a transport system, such as performance, and limit its negative effects, such as environmental deterioration. However, intermodal transport requires even more efforts in international cooperation.
With this clear picture in mind, research-driven clusters in five European regions (Canary Islands in Spain, Ruse in Bulgaria, Bremen in Germany, Calabria in Italy, and East Marmara in Turkey) set up the Intraregio project to create a transnational network and to develop and uptake innovation solutions for intermodal transport.
Funded under the EU's FP7 Regions of Knowledge programme, the project evolved around two main objectives: supporting high quality research and innovation in transport and logistics and facilitating clusters’ management and policy making mutual learning. The clusters represented in the project gathered in fact altogether 18 partners from the industry, the academia and the policy making. The transfer of competences and experiences between the clusters and individually between the partnering organization has been a leit motiv throughout the project which was structured around four thematic Work Packages (WPs).
Firstly an in-depth analysis of the regions’ state of play has been performed investigating on all regional public and private RTD actors directly involved or potentially interested in innovative applications for the transport sector, on available infrastructures and research facilities, available technologies as well as on needs for technological innovations. By means of a cross-regional Comparative Analysis the collected information has been structured in a comprehensive and comparable way. Best practice cases in terms of cluster policies and technology transfer dynamics has been identified as well. The activities of this WP led to the elaboration of five regional Research Agendas, and to a Comparative Analysis, including a Directory of RTD offer and demand and a global SWOT analysis illustrating the regions’ performance from the RTD and economic point of view.
The results of this preliminary analysis served as first input for the draft of the Intraregio Joint Action Plan (JAP). The JAP is a transnational strategy aimed on one side at improving and enlarging the international collaboration on transport and on the other at reinforcing transport concerns in regional policy making and incentivizing research activities and the diffusion of innovative solutions for an optimized modal split and highly efficient logistic chains in Europe. The The JAP has been integrated and enriched throughout the whole project duration with the inputs received from the other WPs and from two international events organized in the framework of the project, the RTD Strategy and Policy Formulation Event and the International Dialogue Events. The JAP has structured around four major directions:
a) Measures addressed to encourage RTD performers and industry representatives in moving
towards advanced technological solutions for supporting the development and the adoption of
innovative technologies and concepts for intermodal freight and passenger transportation needs;
b) Policies in terms of legal and financial incentives to enhance the research results’ transfer to transport/related industries, in particular to SMEs as transport and service operators in each
region;
c) Socio/economic benefits gained through the implementation of policies, technologies and
procedures contributing to improved transport systems and to the competitiveness of the
transport/related economy;
d) Community awareness activities.
Finally the JAP included a financial business plan to ensure the financial sustainability of the measures envisaged.
Under WP4, the development and implementation of mutual learning processes has been framed including promotion of staff exchanges, joint trainings and workshops. Vertical learning has been achieved through the participation of project partners into 48 staff exchanges which provided the possibility to take up lessons on different aspects, such as different research strategies, the use of new technological applications and various models of technology transfer activities. Special attention has been paid to the involved regions disposing of a less-developed research profile which need further mentoring in terms of cluster approaches, implementation of promising research strategies and technology transfer capabilities. Horizontal learning processes (mutual learning) consisted of five transnational workshops aimed at putting together ideas and concrete actions for achieving the objectives set in the JAP.
WP5 dealt with the elaboration of an International Cooperation Strategy with third countries supports thematic networking activities among a wide international transport community and the detection of cooperation possibilities in RTD and innovation support services. The Strategy was developed taking into account the inputs got in the International Dialogue Event and led eventually to the signature of Two International Cooperation Agreements with Morocco and Ukraine.
Several other joint activities, not planned at the project development phase, emerged naturally under the framework of the Intraregio project. Among those one is particularly worthy to mention since it represented an additional concrete step towards intermodal transport and is the development of a roadmap for the uptake of ICT solutions in logistics in the framework of the pilot call launched by the European Commission (see www.mapdriver.eu).
Project Context and Objectives:
Transport is the backbone of the European economy and also in the next programming period it plays a key role in generating economic progress through trade and labour mobility. The urgent need for transport policies has been highlighted so to maximise the benefits and minimise the negative effects of transport in Europe. According to the White Papers published in 2010, road transport is expected to maintain its dominant role in both passenger and freight transport while the geographical distribution of freight transport growth will not be uniform.
Therefore, intermodal transport has a pivotal role for the balanced transport flows in Europe and offers interesting opportunities to improve the performance of a transport system. Nonetheless, numerous problems related for instance to lack of interconnectivity and interoperability hamper the breakthroughs in intermodal transport.
In this framework, the InTraRegio project has been conceived to increase the introduction of European innovation in the global transport market by opening up win-win cooperation among different European regions and their key actors for delivering efficient transport flows. Integration and cooperation among the five European regions Canary Islands (Spain), Bremen (Germany), Marmara (Turkey), Calabria (Italy), and Ruse (Bulgaria) has been enhanced with regard to the regions’ development of policies and research strategies that lead to the increase of advanced technological solutions for the transport sector, in particular with regard to intermodal freight and passenger transport. The partnerships is formed by a transnational network that brings together from each project region regional innovative research-driven clusters, represented by 18 project partners, and associating regional authorities, research centres and universities as well as enterprises.
The InTraRegio project aimed to enhance the capacity of the five cluster regions involved with the final goal to develop regional RTD and economic policies and research strategies and to upgrade the existing research-driven clusters through mutual learning processes and collaborative relationships among them. Besides, the project aimed to develop a transnational strategy for consolidating and developing knowledge in transport-related topics and in this context it seeked to reinforce transport concerns in regional policy making and incentivise research activities and the diffusion of innovative solutions for an optimized modal split and highly efficient logistic chains in the five project regions.
The main scientific and technical objectives and sub-objectives are listed as follows:
1. Strengthening the INTRAREGIO regions’ capacity for investing more and better in RTD and producing research strategies contributing to regional socioeconomic development and to enhanced European competitiveness of transport-related economies
a. Enhance participation of responsible policymakers in transport concerns, seeking for an increased allocation of local and regional funds to the transport sector and the better economic exploitation of funds coming from EU instruments, such as the FP, CIP, EU Structural Funds ERDF and ESF and the Cohesion Fund.
b. Reinforce involvement and awareness raising of the private sector in research activities (including e.g. private actors such as banks, business angels and further financiers), aimed to mobilise private financial capital through the creation of a more favourable environment to the private financing of innovation.
c. Generate a pool of innovation excellence of critical technologies and a critical mass of European research through the improved cooperation on RTD activities at transnational level.
d. Bring research closer to industry through clustering activities and encourage and foster the development and adoption of advanced technologies, consequently contributing to future sustainable and competitive dynamic transport systems
2. Fostering development, cooperation and integration of innovative and mature research-driven clusters
a. Encourage and improve the cooperation on transport-related services, focusing on transport intermodality concepts, among five European research-driven clusters, in order to address jointly transport-related issues (e.g. economic growth compatible with sustainability, environment and safety concerns, quality assurance, regulation and legislation, etc.), and to add value to the actions accomplished by the clusters individually at regional level.
b. Bring together research and industrial expertise know-how from different regions, valorising complementarities and developing synergies for favouring innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches by integrating different kinds of technologies (ICTs, automotive technology, material technology, robotics, energy technologies, etc.).
c. Develop a Joint Action Plan, built on a common foresight and a long-term vision on concerted regional strategies, common working platforms and economic development and research policies.
d. Start mutual learning processes by sharing best practices on regional RTD policies, on research activities aimed at a stronger diffusion of innovative technological and operational solutions for intermodality and traffic management, as well as on the impact that intermodality can have on the functions performed by nodes in transportation networks.
e. Performing mentoring to project regions with a less-developed research and technical profile, aimed at permitting these regions to create the right interfaces for capacity building and developing successful functioning research-driven clusters performing advanced research activities with qualified human capital backed by supportive regional policies.
f. Adopting a global approach by developing an International Cooperation Strategy, identifying clusters from third countries with expertise knowledge in the transport sector, especially with regard to intermodality, and starting the exchange of knowledge and best practices, aimed to support the internationalisation process of the involved regional research-driven clusters and to set up a long-term vision on concerted regional strategies and economic development and research policies.
3. Disseminate knowledge and raising public awareness
a. Disseminate knowledge of the project activities outside the consortium through the participation to and organisation of conferences, events and workshops as well as publications (also web-based), aimed at putting a focus on intermodality concepts, improving information and increasing visibility and understanding on intermodal transport at the pan-European level.
b. Disseminate knowledge and raise public awareness through the elaboration of an International Cooperation Strategy that will tackle topic-related clusters and networks outside the project regions and based in third countries. The Cooperation Strategy will also include the approach of international bodies such as for example the Joint Transport Research Centre of the OECD and the International Transport Forum, or the European Intermodal Association (ISL of Bremen involved in LogDynamics is an associate member).
Project Results:
The presentation of the results achieved during the lifetime of the project will be structured around the Work Packages (WP) to facilitate also the assessment of its conformity with the DoW.
Four thematic WPs were in fact planned, additionally to the WP1 of Management and WP6 of Dissemination:
- In WP2 an in-depth analysis of the regions’ state of play has been performed investigating on all regional public and private RTD actors directly involved or potentially interested in innovative applications for the transport sector, on available infrastructures and research facilities, available technologies as well as on needs for technological innovations. By means of a cross-regional Comparative Analysis the collected information has been structured in a comprehensive and comparable way. Best practice cases in terms of cluster policies and technology transfer dynamics has been identified as well. The activities of this WP led to the elaboration of five regional Research Agendas, and to a Comparative Analysis, including a Directory of RTD offer and demand and a global SWOT analysis illustrating the regions’ performance from the RTD and economic point of view.
In WP3 a Joint RTD Strategy & Policy Formulation Event has been organized to present to the public the project deliverables achieved under WP2 and a first draft of the Joint Action Plan (JAP), designed on the basis of the analysis performed. The event facilitated the emergence and identification of common interests in terms of technological objectives to be achieved and strategic policies and initiatives to be undertaken, which have been then translated into the JAP. The JAP has been integrated and enriched throughout the whole project duration with the inputs received from the other WPs. The Joint Action Plan intended thus to improve and enhance the integration among the regions in their development, while considering the specific regional conditions and allowing regions to chose the right tools for achieving the identified strategic objectives. In this sense, the Plan included also a Business plan to ensure the financial sustainability of the actions envisaged.
Under WP4, the development and implementation of mutual learning processes has been framed including promotion of staff exchanges, joint trainings and workshops. Vertical learning has been achieved through the participation of project partners to 40 staff exchanges which provided the possibility to take up lessons on different aspects, such as different research strategies, the use of new technological applications and various models of technology transfer activities. Special attention has been paid to the involved regions disposing of a less-developed research profile which need further mentoring in terms of cluster approaches, implementation of promising research strategies and technology transfer capabilities. Horizontal learning processes (mutual learning) consisted of five transnational workshops aimed at putting together ideas and concrete actions for achieving the objectives set in the JAP.
WP5 dealt with the elaboration of an International Cooperation Strategy with third countries supports thematic networking activities among a wide international transport community and the detection of cooperation possibilities in RTD and innovation support services. The Strategy was developed taking into account the inputs got in the International Dialogue Event and led eventually to the signature of Two International Cooperation Agreements with Morocco and Ukraine.
The following quantitative outcomes were expected:
Regional Research Agendas (5)
Cross-regional Comparative Analysis
Global SWOT illustrating the RTD and economic performance
Directory of RTD offer and demand
Technology transfer models– best practices (at least 5)
Joint RTD Strategy & Policy Formulation Event
Joint Action Plan, including Business Plan
Staff exchanges (at least 10), plus at least 2 additional for mentoring purposes
Transnational workshops (5)
International Cooperation Strategy including at least 2 cooperation agreements
The main results achieved under each WP with a description of the outcomes above listed follows.
WP2 was fully completed within the first reporting period and all objectives, achieved through three main tasks, were successfully met. For this reason, it must be referred to the interim report for description of all the tasks. The two main results of WP2 are the five regional Research Agendas (D2.2) and the Comparative Analysis (D2.4). Both documents provided essential contribution to the further development of the project work, in particular to the elaboration of the Joint Action Plan (WP3) and the execution of interregional learning processes and mentoring activities (WP4).
WP3 started with the organization of the Joint RTD Strategy & Policy Formulation event Considered as the First International Conference on "A European research strategy for intermodal transport", the event represented an important dissemination measure undertaken for raising awareness and knowledge at regional and European level on the project activities and the regional situations of the clusters analysed under WP2. The conference gathered more than 150 participants coming from the research, industrial and policy making coming from all Europe. The conference resulted in the publication of proceedings which have been also assigned with an ISBN number (ISBN 978-954-8675-70-3
The conference together with the analysis carried out under WP2 represented the first inputs for the development of the Intraregio Joint Action Plan (JAP) which started in January 2013, and ended in Month 36. The Joint Action Plan (JAP) aims at expressing the partners’ strategy to drive economic growth through research and technological development activities and further supportive activities improving transport modalities and making transport modes more efficiently, secure and environmentally friendly.
The JAP first draft (D 3.2) has been delivered in Month 19 (8th July, while planned for Month 18 in the DoW) and the final version had been delivered at end of the project together with the updated version of the Business Plan and Implementation Strategy on the JAP (D3.3). The following results coming from other project activities have contributed to the development of the final Action Plan:
- the results of the activities carried out within WP4, namely the staff exchanges, the international workshops and the mentoring activities;
- the cooperation activities with Third Countries within WP5 which have led to the signature of two International Cooperation Agreements.
Considering these sources, the JAP focuses on four major directions:
o Measures addressed to encourage RTD performers and industry representatives in moving towards advanced technological solutions for supporting the development and the adoption of innovative technologies and concepts for intermodal freight and passenger transportation needs;
o Policies in terms of legal and financial incentives to enhance the research results’ transfer to transport-related industries, in particular to SMEs as transport and service operators in each region;
o Socio-economic benefits gained through the implementation of policies, technologies and procedures contributing to improved transport systems and to the competitiveness of the transport-related economy;
o Community awareness activities.
Indeed, the JAP consists of the following components:
1. Introduction and joint Action Plan definition
2. Methodology Implemented
3. Specific Proposals
4. Financial Aspects
5. Legal Aspects
With Regards to the Specific proposals section, the following measures have been planned by the partnership:
PROPOSAL 1.- Improving the EU-Morocco transport efficiency, fostering the cargo modal
shift towards maritime routes to reduce pollution and operative costs
PROPOSAL 2.- Single ticket
PROPOSAL 3.- Transport and logistics to serve offshore renewable energy facilities
PROPOSAL 4.-Improving the EU-Africa transport efficiency using maritime routes (this proposal has been merged with proposal 1)
PROPOSAL 5.- RTD tools to improve logistics at ports
PROPOSAL 6.-International and Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Programme
PROPOSAL 7.- Maritime traffic control and monitoring in near shore and offshore sea areas
PROPOSAL 8.- Erasmus exchange
PROPOSAL 9.- Inter(multi)modal Green Freight Corridor Middle East – Western and
North-Eastern Europe
In parallel with the development of the JAP, the definition of financial schemes that supports the implementation of the Joint Action Plan was carried out. In this regard, the final Action Plan includes an updated version of the Business Plan, representing the strategy for ensuring the financial back up of the measures to be set into action. The Business Plan demonstrates in detail how the activities and measures will be financed, considering the regions’ public and private financial resources to be attributed to the sector as well as the setting up of new forms and strategies of funding systems, assuring strong incentives on research and industry side to participate in research activities for the sector.
Each project region conducted in fact a thorough analysis of the possible financial resources to sustain the instruments of the action plan. The research involved public and also private funding, such as regional funds, governmental programmes, structural funds, EU research programmes, sponsorships, private investments. The Business plan takes thus into consideration the potential synergies with structural funds and other relevant sources of regional or national funding identified in most of the project regions at the beginning of the project. Likewise those European programmes suitable for the funding of activities framed in the Joint Action Plan and already identified before the project starting (FP7, CIP, Marco Polo, Galileo, Interreg IVC,) have been addressed.
WP 4 was designed to support the mutual learning process of the regional research-driven clusters and provide input for the development of the Joint Action Plan. Thus, the activities foreseen were mostly concentrated on the experiences of each of the involved clusters as well as on the possibilities to learn and exchange these experiences among each other and take up lessons from good practices identified in Europe.
During the proposal preparation the region of Ruse and the region of Calabria had been identified as regions in need of particular mentoring activities, either related to their research capabilities in the interest fields or/and related to their technology transfer capacities and their political framework/ policy management.
The mutual learning was structured horizontally through staff exchanged and vertically through international workshops. Overall five transnational workshops have been organised, one in each project region, attended by regional innovation programme makers, scientific actors and industrial transport players. Next to local participants, also stakeholders from the respective other project regions participated to the workshops in order to generate a real information flow and knowledge exchange.The transnational workshops aimed at contributing to the establishment of a long-term cooperation among the InTraRegio partners which goes beyond the project boundaries. They have been an essential activity to support the goals set in the Joint Action Plan, to generate further ideas for future collaboration and to enhance the European integration process. To this end, the thematic proposals collected in the Joint Action Plan have been discussed and enriched with further input with the aim to present them under suitable European funding programmes. The five workshops have been carried out over a period of twelve months as indicated below:
1) The transnational workshop on Maritime Transport Planning - Istanbul (Turkish Cluster) 11-12 November 2013.
2) The transnational workshop on Intermodal Transport Planning - Bremen (German Cluster) 12 February 2014.
3) The transnational workshop on Infrastructure Development and Efficient Exploitation – Ruse (Bulgarian Cluster) 10-12 April 2014.
4) The transnational workshop on IT Solutions for Transportation – Calabria (Italian Cluster) 9-10 July 2014.
5) The transnational workshop on Port and Sea Terminal – Fuerteventura (Canary Islands-Spain Cluster ) 19-21 November 2014.
If workshop were aimed at increasing the knowledge on specific transport-related issues, staff exchanges aimed at facilitating the exchange of experience and comptences mainly among the project organizations. 14 out of 18 INTRAREGIO project partners have sent their personnel to other partners for exchange. Overal 48 staff exchanges have been completed against the 10 planned in the DoW. This discrepancy was due to the decision of the consortium to have shorter mobility period but with more than one person per organization. The distribution of the staff exchanges is reported below:
BULGARIA: 4 partners have sent 18 personnel for staff exchange.
CANARY ISLANDS/SPAIN: 1 partner has sent 3 personnel for staff exchange.
GERMANY: 3 partners have sent 7 personnel for staff exchange.
ITALY: 2 partners have sent 3 personnel for staff exchange.
TURKEY: 4 partners have sent 5 personnel for staff exchange.
Following each exchange, participants were asked to report on the experience which resulted to be a very useful and appreciated activity within the project. According to the reports the major outcomes of the staff exchanges have been:
• Possibilities to strengthen the relations among Clusters and more precise and concrete knowledge of the common areas of interest are found
• The intellectual accumulation and personal capability of the project partners’ personnel have increased
• Several opportunities internships and future study visits between partners have arisen
• Information about best practices of inter-modality and transportation planning has been mutually exchanged.
• Exchange of good practices for fostering entrepreneurship and innovations in transport and logistics have been made
The staff exchanges between the mentoring regions and the other ones have been longer to allow organization from mentoring regions to benefit more from this experience.
Overall 11 staff exchanges from Calabria and Ruse partners towards other clusters have been organized.The CALABRIA region made staff exchanges with University of Bremen (Bremen cluster) and with East Marmara cluster, with the result to have found a common way to implement some of the targeted INTRAREGIO Joint Action Plan actions, together with the opportunity to collaborate for future research project that can be on common interest.
The RUSE region focused all the staff exchanges to Bremen cluster, so they had the opportunity to approach an efficient logistics and intermodal system, acquiring information about the best practices in the field of port logistics and of intermodal efficiency.
Finally WP5 aimed at setting up an international cooperation strategy so as to give on one side a higher visibility to the transnational cluster emerged through the project and, on the other side, to strengthen the cluster’s excellence by confronting own research strategies with the research planning of other clusters at international level. In order to fulfil the aims of the WP5 six working steps approach have been conceived. First, a cluster identification analysis has been performed to assess partners’ established contacts/networks in non-EU-countries and countries/contacts of strategic interest. The results of the analysis are presented below. The first table shows the summary of established contacts outside of EU of the project consortia. The analysis resulted in a list of potential organizations from third countries to be contacted or with which to further explore collaboration opportunities, as shown belo
Ukraine (initiated by Ruse)
Odessa Region Transport Cluster
Russia (initiated by Ruse)
Samara Transport-Logistics Cluster
Samara Region Innovative Territorial Aerospace Cluster
China (initiated by Bremen)
Dalian Maritime Logistic Cluster
Thailand (initiated by Bremen)
Intermodal hinterland cluster formation in Phitsanulok
Cameroon (initiated by Bremen)
Intermodal hinterland cluster formation in Ngaoundéré
Morocco (initiated by Canary Islands)
Cluster de la Logistique de SMD
South Korea (initiated by Bremen)
Pusan logistic cluster
Representatives of some of the clusters listed above were then invited to the conference InTraRegio International Dialogue Event on Intermodal Transport (IDE) was held on 12th – 13th of February 2014. The event was held parallel to the established conference – the 4th International Conference on Dynamics in Logistics (LDIC 2014) – at the University of Bremen.
The IDE was aimed at supporting an international dialogue and cooperative activities for the responsible development and use of emerging technologies for intermodal transport solutions. International experts from Non-EU-countries gave up-to-date insights and practical examples of how leaders in these countries are responding to the challenge of a sustainable global transport economy.
The IDE played a crucial role in the establishing a dialogue and collaboration between regions from EU Member States and Third Countries in the field of intermodal transport. The development of concrete actions or joint projects was the main objective of this forum. These activities has been strengthened by signing International Cooperation Agreements within the InTraRegio project after its completion, one of which (with Ukranian cluster PLASKE JSC) was signed during the conference itself.
All in all, IDE represented an extraordinary expert exchange forum within an international, interdisciplinary and intercultural conference which offered a wide range of topics presented in lectures, expert panel discussions, demonstrations of innovative technologies and workshops. The aim of the conference “to support the cross-border dialogue and the cooperation in the application of new technologies for intermodal transport chains” could definitively be achieved.
Further impressions of the conferences (IDE and LDIC) can be seen at the following website: http://www.ldic-conference.org/155.html
Next experts’ exchange forum was created within the Transnational Workshop organized by the Canary Islands as well as the InTraRegio Final Event on 19th and 20th of November 2014 in Fuerteventura and parallel to the SALT Conference 2014 (Salón Atlántico de Logistica y Transporte). Synergies with the established conference boosted also here the impact and supported the visibility of the project and its aims. During the workshop the second international agreement of transport clusters coming from Bremen, Marocco and the Canary Islands was signed. The trilateral agreement provides the basis for future cooperation between the regions of Bremen, Canary Islands and Morocco in research and innovation projects concerning transport and logistics. The first project ideas are already developed and will be implemented shortly. The project is part of the issue of sustainable short distance sea shipping, which aims to establish a maritime naval corridor between southern Morocco and Bremen via the Canary Islands, included in the JAP.
This cooperation is majorly influenced by prior work done during the InTraRegio project which aimed to improve the cooperation capacity in the use of intermodal transport of the participating regions. Using a variety of different transport systems helps these regions to create a better and more efficient network. Parties to the agreement are: LogDynamics Research Cluster at the University of Bremen represented by Professor Hans-Dietrich Haasis, Cluster of Transport and Logistics of the Canary Islands represented by the President Javier Santana Fraga and Cluster LOGIPOLE SMD (Cluster Marocain de la Logistique et du Transport) represented by the president Yassine Rhanmouni.
Potential Impact:
The analysis carried out during the first phase of the project provided an updated and clear overview of the regional conditions, including knowledge on the scientific and industrial communities operating in the relevant transport topics as well as on the institutional and operational framework in which the project activities will be carried out. In this regard, the regions’ research capacity has been analysed in terms of their their research programmes and the research activities performed. The gained knowledge has been converted into valuable and comparable data, thus setting the basis for starting cooperation and setting up coordinated activities among the regions and their key stakeholders.
Besides, regional authorities through the enhanced interaction with science and industry within the InTraRegio cluster acquired a thorough understanding of the current RTD and industrial situations, thus being more moved to establish encouraging regional framework conditions for providing a stimulating environment for research entities to conduct high quality research. As a result of the enhanced participation of the regional policymakers in transport concerns, an increased allocation of local and regional funds to the sector and a better exploitation of funds coming from EU instruments, has been achieved thus strengthening the capacity of the regions to invest in RTD. In some cases, such as in Canary Islands, this has meant an increase of the percentage of local funds dedicated to clusters.
Besides, the collaboration between business, research centres and universities at regional level and between regional clusters will facilitate the identification of the regions’ areas of specialization in line with the invitation of the European Commission. For istance in East Marmara, the knowledge developed in the framework of the project has been incorporated and explicitly mentioned into the Regional Smart Specialization Strategy (S3).
The development of the Joint Action Plan, led the Intraregio partners to plan current and future activities to be carried out beyond the Intraregio project. In this sense, several joint projects and collaborations have been started by the project partners. An interesting example has been the MAPDRIVER project, an EU project funded under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme aimed at developing a roadmap for the uptake of ICT in logistics. The project which started in November 2013 and will end up in June 2014, gather two Intraregio partners from Canary Islands (GOBCAN and CONSULTA EUROPA), the University of Bremen, Koç University in Turkey and the International Transporters Association. Other activities among those planned in the JAP have nonetheless already kicked off thus making the future cooperation looking already promising.
As a general rule, the number of joint projects in transport developed by the business and the research has increased in particularly during the last year of the project and it is expected that many proposals will be submitted jointly by some partners under Horizon2020 and Erasmus+ (at this stage already five proposals to be submitted under the two programmes are under development).
With respect to the Third Countries, two International Cooperation Agreements have been signed during the project and the cooperation has already become operational for the trilateral agreement among Bremen, Canary Islands and Morocco. Nonetheless more contacts were established during the project under WP5, and in particular with Asia and it is expected that those contactes will generate further agreement and joint activities in the coming months.
All effects considered, the transnational cooperation promoted the regional economic development and competitiveness in the regions involved. In particular, in consideration of the current economic crusis, the collaboration framed in the project has been tremendously successful in counterbalance the unemployment trend in the sector: in all regions employment rates increases from 2011 to 2013 of at least 1% against a general stagnation trend registered in EU regions (Eurostat). Another interesting data concerns the human resources employed in R&D: employement in R&D has a striking increase from 2010 to 2013 in Canary Islands and East Marmare (around 15%), a slight increase in Ruse while it remained unvaried in Bremen and Calabria. From internal statistics, an increase of the output in the transport sector of 7% has been estimated for all the regions.
As already described previously, the regions of Calabria in Italy and of Ruse in Bulgaria were lesser developed regions in comparison to the other three involved regions. Through the additional mentoring carried out in the framework of the project, both regions were facilitated in the creation of the right interfaces and helped in moving forward in the sectors from scientific, industrial and political side.
Outside the regional territories involved, the main impact has been generated throgh the planned dissemination activities. A dissemination strategy was developed at the beginning of the project and focused on on three main communication channels: the project website and social network, participation and organization of conferences, direct contact through the partners’ networks.
As a summary of the dissemination activity of the InTraRegio consortium several results could be outlined: In total 472 activities for disseminating the project objectives and current results were performed by the 18 partners.
If they are classified by means of communication, the data shows the following distribution:
• 117 activities in media channels (press conferences, press releases, TV-radio interviews, newsletters). Most of those activities were in the form of newsletter’s multiplication effect (79), press releases (25) for announcing project actions and/or events, connected with the project. Another 12 activities were press releases and publications of project partners, and 1 more TV interview from the partner EMDA.
• 305 events (meetings, conferences, seminars, face-to-face meetings, presentations). The majority of the events (196) are meetings and conferences in which the project partners have participated. Conferences are usually preferred by the academic partners in the consortium, while meetings with partners, local, national or European authorities were held by all consortium members. There are also 38 participations in seminars as a form of events, mainly performed by academic partners in order to communicate with business partners or o show current trends and achievements in transport operations to students. Presentations (64) were organized by displaying posters and stands to events that have common topics with the project or meetings with small groups of people that could be in the role of stakeholders.
• 31 activities in Internet (website publications, social networks). Almost all of those activities (29) were performed through websites of the partnering institutions, trough the official website of the project www.intraregio.eu the European Enterprise Network website and the Transport and Research Innovation portal. There is also a specific activity through the Linked In social platform;
• 10 publications. Most of those publications are performed in transport related magazines; two scientific articles were presented on the Intraregio conferences. Important result here also is the official publication the conference proceedings with ISBN registration, uploaded to the project website for public dissemination.
• 9 other activities (mailings, visits, letters). In most of the cases these are activities like information days or meeting with partners or investors, where the Intraregio project was not the main topic, but was discussed together with other issues.
List of Websites:
www.intraregio.eu
Michelle Perello - Consulta Europa Projects and Innovation
michelle.perello@consulta-europa.com
+39 340 160 89 45
Transport is fundamental to our economy and society. Mobility is vital for the internal market and for the quality of life of citizens as they enjoy their freedom to travel. Transport enables economic growth and job creation, but to make better use of existing transport modes (road, rail, sea and air) breakthroughs are required in intermodal transport. Intermodal transport can improve the benefits of a transport system, such as performance, and limit its negative effects, such as environmental deterioration. However, intermodal transport requires even more efforts in international cooperation.
With this clear picture in mind, research-driven clusters in five European regions (Canary Islands in Spain, Ruse in Bulgaria, Bremen in Germany, Calabria in Italy, and East Marmara in Turkey) set up the Intraregio project to create a transnational network and to develop and uptake innovation solutions for intermodal transport.
Funded under the EU's FP7 Regions of Knowledge programme, the project evolved around two main objectives: supporting high quality research and innovation in transport and logistics and facilitating clusters’ management and policy making mutual learning. The clusters represented in the project gathered in fact altogether 18 partners from the industry, the academia and the policy making. The transfer of competences and experiences between the clusters and individually between the partnering organization has been a leit motiv throughout the project which was structured around four thematic Work Packages (WPs).
Firstly an in-depth analysis of the regions’ state of play has been performed investigating on all regional public and private RTD actors directly involved or potentially interested in innovative applications for the transport sector, on available infrastructures and research facilities, available technologies as well as on needs for technological innovations. By means of a cross-regional Comparative Analysis the collected information has been structured in a comprehensive and comparable way. Best practice cases in terms of cluster policies and technology transfer dynamics has been identified as well. The activities of this WP led to the elaboration of five regional Research Agendas, and to a Comparative Analysis, including a Directory of RTD offer and demand and a global SWOT analysis illustrating the regions’ performance from the RTD and economic point of view.
The results of this preliminary analysis served as first input for the draft of the Intraregio Joint Action Plan (JAP). The JAP is a transnational strategy aimed on one side at improving and enlarging the international collaboration on transport and on the other at reinforcing transport concerns in regional policy making and incentivizing research activities and the diffusion of innovative solutions for an optimized modal split and highly efficient logistic chains in Europe. The The JAP has been integrated and enriched throughout the whole project duration with the inputs received from the other WPs and from two international events organized in the framework of the project, the RTD Strategy and Policy Formulation Event and the International Dialogue Events. The JAP has structured around four major directions:
a) Measures addressed to encourage RTD performers and industry representatives in moving
towards advanced technological solutions for supporting the development and the adoption of
innovative technologies and concepts for intermodal freight and passenger transportation needs;
b) Policies in terms of legal and financial incentives to enhance the research results’ transfer to transport/related industries, in particular to SMEs as transport and service operators in each
region;
c) Socio/economic benefits gained through the implementation of policies, technologies and
procedures contributing to improved transport systems and to the competitiveness of the
transport/related economy;
d) Community awareness activities.
Finally the JAP included a financial business plan to ensure the financial sustainability of the measures envisaged.
Under WP4, the development and implementation of mutual learning processes has been framed including promotion of staff exchanges, joint trainings and workshops. Vertical learning has been achieved through the participation of project partners into 48 staff exchanges which provided the possibility to take up lessons on different aspects, such as different research strategies, the use of new technological applications and various models of technology transfer activities. Special attention has been paid to the involved regions disposing of a less-developed research profile which need further mentoring in terms of cluster approaches, implementation of promising research strategies and technology transfer capabilities. Horizontal learning processes (mutual learning) consisted of five transnational workshops aimed at putting together ideas and concrete actions for achieving the objectives set in the JAP.
WP5 dealt with the elaboration of an International Cooperation Strategy with third countries supports thematic networking activities among a wide international transport community and the detection of cooperation possibilities in RTD and innovation support services. The Strategy was developed taking into account the inputs got in the International Dialogue Event and led eventually to the signature of Two International Cooperation Agreements with Morocco and Ukraine.
Several other joint activities, not planned at the project development phase, emerged naturally under the framework of the Intraregio project. Among those one is particularly worthy to mention since it represented an additional concrete step towards intermodal transport and is the development of a roadmap for the uptake of ICT solutions in logistics in the framework of the pilot call launched by the European Commission (see www.mapdriver.eu).
Project Context and Objectives:
Transport is the backbone of the European economy and also in the next programming period it plays a key role in generating economic progress through trade and labour mobility. The urgent need for transport policies has been highlighted so to maximise the benefits and minimise the negative effects of transport in Europe. According to the White Papers published in 2010, road transport is expected to maintain its dominant role in both passenger and freight transport while the geographical distribution of freight transport growth will not be uniform.
Therefore, intermodal transport has a pivotal role for the balanced transport flows in Europe and offers interesting opportunities to improve the performance of a transport system. Nonetheless, numerous problems related for instance to lack of interconnectivity and interoperability hamper the breakthroughs in intermodal transport.
In this framework, the InTraRegio project has been conceived to increase the introduction of European innovation in the global transport market by opening up win-win cooperation among different European regions and their key actors for delivering efficient transport flows. Integration and cooperation among the five European regions Canary Islands (Spain), Bremen (Germany), Marmara (Turkey), Calabria (Italy), and Ruse (Bulgaria) has been enhanced with regard to the regions’ development of policies and research strategies that lead to the increase of advanced technological solutions for the transport sector, in particular with regard to intermodal freight and passenger transport. The partnerships is formed by a transnational network that brings together from each project region regional innovative research-driven clusters, represented by 18 project partners, and associating regional authorities, research centres and universities as well as enterprises.
The InTraRegio project aimed to enhance the capacity of the five cluster regions involved with the final goal to develop regional RTD and economic policies and research strategies and to upgrade the existing research-driven clusters through mutual learning processes and collaborative relationships among them. Besides, the project aimed to develop a transnational strategy for consolidating and developing knowledge in transport-related topics and in this context it seeked to reinforce transport concerns in regional policy making and incentivise research activities and the diffusion of innovative solutions for an optimized modal split and highly efficient logistic chains in the five project regions.
The main scientific and technical objectives and sub-objectives are listed as follows:
1. Strengthening the INTRAREGIO regions’ capacity for investing more and better in RTD and producing research strategies contributing to regional socioeconomic development and to enhanced European competitiveness of transport-related economies
a. Enhance participation of responsible policymakers in transport concerns, seeking for an increased allocation of local and regional funds to the transport sector and the better economic exploitation of funds coming from EU instruments, such as the FP, CIP, EU Structural Funds ERDF and ESF and the Cohesion Fund.
b. Reinforce involvement and awareness raising of the private sector in research activities (including e.g. private actors such as banks, business angels and further financiers), aimed to mobilise private financial capital through the creation of a more favourable environment to the private financing of innovation.
c. Generate a pool of innovation excellence of critical technologies and a critical mass of European research through the improved cooperation on RTD activities at transnational level.
d. Bring research closer to industry through clustering activities and encourage and foster the development and adoption of advanced technologies, consequently contributing to future sustainable and competitive dynamic transport systems
2. Fostering development, cooperation and integration of innovative and mature research-driven clusters
a. Encourage and improve the cooperation on transport-related services, focusing on transport intermodality concepts, among five European research-driven clusters, in order to address jointly transport-related issues (e.g. economic growth compatible with sustainability, environment and safety concerns, quality assurance, regulation and legislation, etc.), and to add value to the actions accomplished by the clusters individually at regional level.
b. Bring together research and industrial expertise know-how from different regions, valorising complementarities and developing synergies for favouring innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches by integrating different kinds of technologies (ICTs, automotive technology, material technology, robotics, energy technologies, etc.).
c. Develop a Joint Action Plan, built on a common foresight and a long-term vision on concerted regional strategies, common working platforms and economic development and research policies.
d. Start mutual learning processes by sharing best practices on regional RTD policies, on research activities aimed at a stronger diffusion of innovative technological and operational solutions for intermodality and traffic management, as well as on the impact that intermodality can have on the functions performed by nodes in transportation networks.
e. Performing mentoring to project regions with a less-developed research and technical profile, aimed at permitting these regions to create the right interfaces for capacity building and developing successful functioning research-driven clusters performing advanced research activities with qualified human capital backed by supportive regional policies.
f. Adopting a global approach by developing an International Cooperation Strategy, identifying clusters from third countries with expertise knowledge in the transport sector, especially with regard to intermodality, and starting the exchange of knowledge and best practices, aimed to support the internationalisation process of the involved regional research-driven clusters and to set up a long-term vision on concerted regional strategies and economic development and research policies.
3. Disseminate knowledge and raising public awareness
a. Disseminate knowledge of the project activities outside the consortium through the participation to and organisation of conferences, events and workshops as well as publications (also web-based), aimed at putting a focus on intermodality concepts, improving information and increasing visibility and understanding on intermodal transport at the pan-European level.
b. Disseminate knowledge and raise public awareness through the elaboration of an International Cooperation Strategy that will tackle topic-related clusters and networks outside the project regions and based in third countries. The Cooperation Strategy will also include the approach of international bodies such as for example the Joint Transport Research Centre of the OECD and the International Transport Forum, or the European Intermodal Association (ISL of Bremen involved in LogDynamics is an associate member).
Project Results:
The presentation of the results achieved during the lifetime of the project will be structured around the Work Packages (WP) to facilitate also the assessment of its conformity with the DoW.
Four thematic WPs were in fact planned, additionally to the WP1 of Management and WP6 of Dissemination:
- In WP2 an in-depth analysis of the regions’ state of play has been performed investigating on all regional public and private RTD actors directly involved or potentially interested in innovative applications for the transport sector, on available infrastructures and research facilities, available technologies as well as on needs for technological innovations. By means of a cross-regional Comparative Analysis the collected information has been structured in a comprehensive and comparable way. Best practice cases in terms of cluster policies and technology transfer dynamics has been identified as well. The activities of this WP led to the elaboration of five regional Research Agendas, and to a Comparative Analysis, including a Directory of RTD offer and demand and a global SWOT analysis illustrating the regions’ performance from the RTD and economic point of view.
In WP3 a Joint RTD Strategy & Policy Formulation Event has been organized to present to the public the project deliverables achieved under WP2 and a first draft of the Joint Action Plan (JAP), designed on the basis of the analysis performed. The event facilitated the emergence and identification of common interests in terms of technological objectives to be achieved and strategic policies and initiatives to be undertaken, which have been then translated into the JAP. The JAP has been integrated and enriched throughout the whole project duration with the inputs received from the other WPs. The Joint Action Plan intended thus to improve and enhance the integration among the regions in their development, while considering the specific regional conditions and allowing regions to chose the right tools for achieving the identified strategic objectives. In this sense, the Plan included also a Business plan to ensure the financial sustainability of the actions envisaged.
Under WP4, the development and implementation of mutual learning processes has been framed including promotion of staff exchanges, joint trainings and workshops. Vertical learning has been achieved through the participation of project partners to 40 staff exchanges which provided the possibility to take up lessons on different aspects, such as different research strategies, the use of new technological applications and various models of technology transfer activities. Special attention has been paid to the involved regions disposing of a less-developed research profile which need further mentoring in terms of cluster approaches, implementation of promising research strategies and technology transfer capabilities. Horizontal learning processes (mutual learning) consisted of five transnational workshops aimed at putting together ideas and concrete actions for achieving the objectives set in the JAP.
WP5 dealt with the elaboration of an International Cooperation Strategy with third countries supports thematic networking activities among a wide international transport community and the detection of cooperation possibilities in RTD and innovation support services. The Strategy was developed taking into account the inputs got in the International Dialogue Event and led eventually to the signature of Two International Cooperation Agreements with Morocco and Ukraine.
The following quantitative outcomes were expected:
Regional Research Agendas (5)
Cross-regional Comparative Analysis
Global SWOT illustrating the RTD and economic performance
Directory of RTD offer and demand
Technology transfer models– best practices (at least 5)
Joint RTD Strategy & Policy Formulation Event
Joint Action Plan, including Business Plan
Staff exchanges (at least 10), plus at least 2 additional for mentoring purposes
Transnational workshops (5)
International Cooperation Strategy including at least 2 cooperation agreements
The main results achieved under each WP with a description of the outcomes above listed follows.
WP2 was fully completed within the first reporting period and all objectives, achieved through three main tasks, were successfully met. For this reason, it must be referred to the interim report for description of all the tasks. The two main results of WP2 are the five regional Research Agendas (D2.2) and the Comparative Analysis (D2.4). Both documents provided essential contribution to the further development of the project work, in particular to the elaboration of the Joint Action Plan (WP3) and the execution of interregional learning processes and mentoring activities (WP4).
WP3 started with the organization of the Joint RTD Strategy & Policy Formulation event Considered as the First International Conference on "A European research strategy for intermodal transport", the event represented an important dissemination measure undertaken for raising awareness and knowledge at regional and European level on the project activities and the regional situations of the clusters analysed under WP2. The conference gathered more than 150 participants coming from the research, industrial and policy making coming from all Europe. The conference resulted in the publication of proceedings which have been also assigned with an ISBN number (ISBN 978-954-8675-70-3
The conference together with the analysis carried out under WP2 represented the first inputs for the development of the Intraregio Joint Action Plan (JAP) which started in January 2013, and ended in Month 36. The Joint Action Plan (JAP) aims at expressing the partners’ strategy to drive economic growth through research and technological development activities and further supportive activities improving transport modalities and making transport modes more efficiently, secure and environmentally friendly.
The JAP first draft (D 3.2) has been delivered in Month 19 (8th July, while planned for Month 18 in the DoW) and the final version had been delivered at end of the project together with the updated version of the Business Plan and Implementation Strategy on the JAP (D3.3). The following results coming from other project activities have contributed to the development of the final Action Plan:
- the results of the activities carried out within WP4, namely the staff exchanges, the international workshops and the mentoring activities;
- the cooperation activities with Third Countries within WP5 which have led to the signature of two International Cooperation Agreements.
Considering these sources, the JAP focuses on four major directions:
o Measures addressed to encourage RTD performers and industry representatives in moving towards advanced technological solutions for supporting the development and the adoption of innovative technologies and concepts for intermodal freight and passenger transportation needs;
o Policies in terms of legal and financial incentives to enhance the research results’ transfer to transport-related industries, in particular to SMEs as transport and service operators in each region;
o Socio-economic benefits gained through the implementation of policies, technologies and procedures contributing to improved transport systems and to the competitiveness of the transport-related economy;
o Community awareness activities.
Indeed, the JAP consists of the following components:
1. Introduction and joint Action Plan definition
2. Methodology Implemented
3. Specific Proposals
4. Financial Aspects
5. Legal Aspects
With Regards to the Specific proposals section, the following measures have been planned by the partnership:
PROPOSAL 1.- Improving the EU-Morocco transport efficiency, fostering the cargo modal
shift towards maritime routes to reduce pollution and operative costs
PROPOSAL 2.- Single ticket
PROPOSAL 3.- Transport and logistics to serve offshore renewable energy facilities
PROPOSAL 4.-Improving the EU-Africa transport efficiency using maritime routes (this proposal has been merged with proposal 1)
PROPOSAL 5.- RTD tools to improve logistics at ports
PROPOSAL 6.-International and Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Programme
PROPOSAL 7.- Maritime traffic control and monitoring in near shore and offshore sea areas
PROPOSAL 8.- Erasmus exchange
PROPOSAL 9.- Inter(multi)modal Green Freight Corridor Middle East – Western and
North-Eastern Europe
In parallel with the development of the JAP, the definition of financial schemes that supports the implementation of the Joint Action Plan was carried out. In this regard, the final Action Plan includes an updated version of the Business Plan, representing the strategy for ensuring the financial back up of the measures to be set into action. The Business Plan demonstrates in detail how the activities and measures will be financed, considering the regions’ public and private financial resources to be attributed to the sector as well as the setting up of new forms and strategies of funding systems, assuring strong incentives on research and industry side to participate in research activities for the sector.
Each project region conducted in fact a thorough analysis of the possible financial resources to sustain the instruments of the action plan. The research involved public and also private funding, such as regional funds, governmental programmes, structural funds, EU research programmes, sponsorships, private investments. The Business plan takes thus into consideration the potential synergies with structural funds and other relevant sources of regional or national funding identified in most of the project regions at the beginning of the project. Likewise those European programmes suitable for the funding of activities framed in the Joint Action Plan and already identified before the project starting (FP7, CIP, Marco Polo, Galileo, Interreg IVC,) have been addressed.
WP 4 was designed to support the mutual learning process of the regional research-driven clusters and provide input for the development of the Joint Action Plan. Thus, the activities foreseen were mostly concentrated on the experiences of each of the involved clusters as well as on the possibilities to learn and exchange these experiences among each other and take up lessons from good practices identified in Europe.
During the proposal preparation the region of Ruse and the region of Calabria had been identified as regions in need of particular mentoring activities, either related to their research capabilities in the interest fields or/and related to their technology transfer capacities and their political framework/ policy management.
The mutual learning was structured horizontally through staff exchanged and vertically through international workshops. Overall five transnational workshops have been organised, one in each project region, attended by regional innovation programme makers, scientific actors and industrial transport players. Next to local participants, also stakeholders from the respective other project regions participated to the workshops in order to generate a real information flow and knowledge exchange.The transnational workshops aimed at contributing to the establishment of a long-term cooperation among the InTraRegio partners which goes beyond the project boundaries. They have been an essential activity to support the goals set in the Joint Action Plan, to generate further ideas for future collaboration and to enhance the European integration process. To this end, the thematic proposals collected in the Joint Action Plan have been discussed and enriched with further input with the aim to present them under suitable European funding programmes. The five workshops have been carried out over a period of twelve months as indicated below:
1) The transnational workshop on Maritime Transport Planning - Istanbul (Turkish Cluster) 11-12 November 2013.
2) The transnational workshop on Intermodal Transport Planning - Bremen (German Cluster) 12 February 2014.
3) The transnational workshop on Infrastructure Development and Efficient Exploitation – Ruse (Bulgarian Cluster) 10-12 April 2014.
4) The transnational workshop on IT Solutions for Transportation – Calabria (Italian Cluster) 9-10 July 2014.
5) The transnational workshop on Port and Sea Terminal – Fuerteventura (Canary Islands-Spain Cluster ) 19-21 November 2014.
If workshop were aimed at increasing the knowledge on specific transport-related issues, staff exchanges aimed at facilitating the exchange of experience and comptences mainly among the project organizations. 14 out of 18 INTRAREGIO project partners have sent their personnel to other partners for exchange. Overal 48 staff exchanges have been completed against the 10 planned in the DoW. This discrepancy was due to the decision of the consortium to have shorter mobility period but with more than one person per organization. The distribution of the staff exchanges is reported below:
BULGARIA: 4 partners have sent 18 personnel for staff exchange.
CANARY ISLANDS/SPAIN: 1 partner has sent 3 personnel for staff exchange.
GERMANY: 3 partners have sent 7 personnel for staff exchange.
ITALY: 2 partners have sent 3 personnel for staff exchange.
TURKEY: 4 partners have sent 5 personnel for staff exchange.
Following each exchange, participants were asked to report on the experience which resulted to be a very useful and appreciated activity within the project. According to the reports the major outcomes of the staff exchanges have been:
• Possibilities to strengthen the relations among Clusters and more precise and concrete knowledge of the common areas of interest are found
• The intellectual accumulation and personal capability of the project partners’ personnel have increased
• Several opportunities internships and future study visits between partners have arisen
• Information about best practices of inter-modality and transportation planning has been mutually exchanged.
• Exchange of good practices for fostering entrepreneurship and innovations in transport and logistics have been made
The staff exchanges between the mentoring regions and the other ones have been longer to allow organization from mentoring regions to benefit more from this experience.
Overall 11 staff exchanges from Calabria and Ruse partners towards other clusters have been organized.The CALABRIA region made staff exchanges with University of Bremen (Bremen cluster) and with East Marmara cluster, with the result to have found a common way to implement some of the targeted INTRAREGIO Joint Action Plan actions, together with the opportunity to collaborate for future research project that can be on common interest.
The RUSE region focused all the staff exchanges to Bremen cluster, so they had the opportunity to approach an efficient logistics and intermodal system, acquiring information about the best practices in the field of port logistics and of intermodal efficiency.
Finally WP5 aimed at setting up an international cooperation strategy so as to give on one side a higher visibility to the transnational cluster emerged through the project and, on the other side, to strengthen the cluster’s excellence by confronting own research strategies with the research planning of other clusters at international level. In order to fulfil the aims of the WP5 six working steps approach have been conceived. First, a cluster identification analysis has been performed to assess partners’ established contacts/networks in non-EU-countries and countries/contacts of strategic interest. The results of the analysis are presented below. The first table shows the summary of established contacts outside of EU of the project consortia. The analysis resulted in a list of potential organizations from third countries to be contacted or with which to further explore collaboration opportunities, as shown belo
Ukraine (initiated by Ruse)
Odessa Region Transport Cluster
Russia (initiated by Ruse)
Samara Transport-Logistics Cluster
Samara Region Innovative Territorial Aerospace Cluster
China (initiated by Bremen)
Dalian Maritime Logistic Cluster
Thailand (initiated by Bremen)
Intermodal hinterland cluster formation in Phitsanulok
Cameroon (initiated by Bremen)
Intermodal hinterland cluster formation in Ngaoundéré
Morocco (initiated by Canary Islands)
Cluster de la Logistique de SMD
South Korea (initiated by Bremen)
Pusan logistic cluster
Representatives of some of the clusters listed above were then invited to the conference InTraRegio International Dialogue Event on Intermodal Transport (IDE) was held on 12th – 13th of February 2014. The event was held parallel to the established conference – the 4th International Conference on Dynamics in Logistics (LDIC 2014) – at the University of Bremen.
The IDE was aimed at supporting an international dialogue and cooperative activities for the responsible development and use of emerging technologies for intermodal transport solutions. International experts from Non-EU-countries gave up-to-date insights and practical examples of how leaders in these countries are responding to the challenge of a sustainable global transport economy.
The IDE played a crucial role in the establishing a dialogue and collaboration between regions from EU Member States and Third Countries in the field of intermodal transport. The development of concrete actions or joint projects was the main objective of this forum. These activities has been strengthened by signing International Cooperation Agreements within the InTraRegio project after its completion, one of which (with Ukranian cluster PLASKE JSC) was signed during the conference itself.
All in all, IDE represented an extraordinary expert exchange forum within an international, interdisciplinary and intercultural conference which offered a wide range of topics presented in lectures, expert panel discussions, demonstrations of innovative technologies and workshops. The aim of the conference “to support the cross-border dialogue and the cooperation in the application of new technologies for intermodal transport chains” could definitively be achieved.
Further impressions of the conferences (IDE and LDIC) can be seen at the following website: http://www.ldic-conference.org/155.html
Next experts’ exchange forum was created within the Transnational Workshop organized by the Canary Islands as well as the InTraRegio Final Event on 19th and 20th of November 2014 in Fuerteventura and parallel to the SALT Conference 2014 (Salón Atlántico de Logistica y Transporte). Synergies with the established conference boosted also here the impact and supported the visibility of the project and its aims. During the workshop the second international agreement of transport clusters coming from Bremen, Marocco and the Canary Islands was signed. The trilateral agreement provides the basis for future cooperation between the regions of Bremen, Canary Islands and Morocco in research and innovation projects concerning transport and logistics. The first project ideas are already developed and will be implemented shortly. The project is part of the issue of sustainable short distance sea shipping, which aims to establish a maritime naval corridor between southern Morocco and Bremen via the Canary Islands, included in the JAP.
This cooperation is majorly influenced by prior work done during the InTraRegio project which aimed to improve the cooperation capacity in the use of intermodal transport of the participating regions. Using a variety of different transport systems helps these regions to create a better and more efficient network. Parties to the agreement are: LogDynamics Research Cluster at the University of Bremen represented by Professor Hans-Dietrich Haasis, Cluster of Transport and Logistics of the Canary Islands represented by the President Javier Santana Fraga and Cluster LOGIPOLE SMD (Cluster Marocain de la Logistique et du Transport) represented by the president Yassine Rhanmouni.
Potential Impact:
The analysis carried out during the first phase of the project provided an updated and clear overview of the regional conditions, including knowledge on the scientific and industrial communities operating in the relevant transport topics as well as on the institutional and operational framework in which the project activities will be carried out. In this regard, the regions’ research capacity has been analysed in terms of their their research programmes and the research activities performed. The gained knowledge has been converted into valuable and comparable data, thus setting the basis for starting cooperation and setting up coordinated activities among the regions and their key stakeholders.
Besides, regional authorities through the enhanced interaction with science and industry within the InTraRegio cluster acquired a thorough understanding of the current RTD and industrial situations, thus being more moved to establish encouraging regional framework conditions for providing a stimulating environment for research entities to conduct high quality research. As a result of the enhanced participation of the regional policymakers in transport concerns, an increased allocation of local and regional funds to the sector and a better exploitation of funds coming from EU instruments, has been achieved thus strengthening the capacity of the regions to invest in RTD. In some cases, such as in Canary Islands, this has meant an increase of the percentage of local funds dedicated to clusters.
Besides, the collaboration between business, research centres and universities at regional level and between regional clusters will facilitate the identification of the regions’ areas of specialization in line with the invitation of the European Commission. For istance in East Marmara, the knowledge developed in the framework of the project has been incorporated and explicitly mentioned into the Regional Smart Specialization Strategy (S3).
The development of the Joint Action Plan, led the Intraregio partners to plan current and future activities to be carried out beyond the Intraregio project. In this sense, several joint projects and collaborations have been started by the project partners. An interesting example has been the MAPDRIVER project, an EU project funded under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme aimed at developing a roadmap for the uptake of ICT in logistics. The project which started in November 2013 and will end up in June 2014, gather two Intraregio partners from Canary Islands (GOBCAN and CONSULTA EUROPA), the University of Bremen, Koç University in Turkey and the International Transporters Association. Other activities among those planned in the JAP have nonetheless already kicked off thus making the future cooperation looking already promising.
As a general rule, the number of joint projects in transport developed by the business and the research has increased in particularly during the last year of the project and it is expected that many proposals will be submitted jointly by some partners under Horizon2020 and Erasmus+ (at this stage already five proposals to be submitted under the two programmes are under development).
With respect to the Third Countries, two International Cooperation Agreements have been signed during the project and the cooperation has already become operational for the trilateral agreement among Bremen, Canary Islands and Morocco. Nonetheless more contacts were established during the project under WP5, and in particular with Asia and it is expected that those contactes will generate further agreement and joint activities in the coming months.
All effects considered, the transnational cooperation promoted the regional economic development and competitiveness in the regions involved. In particular, in consideration of the current economic crusis, the collaboration framed in the project has been tremendously successful in counterbalance the unemployment trend in the sector: in all regions employment rates increases from 2011 to 2013 of at least 1% against a general stagnation trend registered in EU regions (Eurostat). Another interesting data concerns the human resources employed in R&D: employement in R&D has a striking increase from 2010 to 2013 in Canary Islands and East Marmare (around 15%), a slight increase in Ruse while it remained unvaried in Bremen and Calabria. From internal statistics, an increase of the output in the transport sector of 7% has been estimated for all the regions.
As already described previously, the regions of Calabria in Italy and of Ruse in Bulgaria were lesser developed regions in comparison to the other three involved regions. Through the additional mentoring carried out in the framework of the project, both regions were facilitated in the creation of the right interfaces and helped in moving forward in the sectors from scientific, industrial and political side.
Outside the regional territories involved, the main impact has been generated throgh the planned dissemination activities. A dissemination strategy was developed at the beginning of the project and focused on on three main communication channels: the project website and social network, participation and organization of conferences, direct contact through the partners’ networks.
As a summary of the dissemination activity of the InTraRegio consortium several results could be outlined: In total 472 activities for disseminating the project objectives and current results were performed by the 18 partners.
If they are classified by means of communication, the data shows the following distribution:
• 117 activities in media channels (press conferences, press releases, TV-radio interviews, newsletters). Most of those activities were in the form of newsletter’s multiplication effect (79), press releases (25) for announcing project actions and/or events, connected with the project. Another 12 activities were press releases and publications of project partners, and 1 more TV interview from the partner EMDA.
• 305 events (meetings, conferences, seminars, face-to-face meetings, presentations). The majority of the events (196) are meetings and conferences in which the project partners have participated. Conferences are usually preferred by the academic partners in the consortium, while meetings with partners, local, national or European authorities were held by all consortium members. There are also 38 participations in seminars as a form of events, mainly performed by academic partners in order to communicate with business partners or o show current trends and achievements in transport operations to students. Presentations (64) were organized by displaying posters and stands to events that have common topics with the project or meetings with small groups of people that could be in the role of stakeholders.
• 31 activities in Internet (website publications, social networks). Almost all of those activities (29) were performed through websites of the partnering institutions, trough the official website of the project www.intraregio.eu the European Enterprise Network website and the Transport and Research Innovation portal. There is also a specific activity through the Linked In social platform;
• 10 publications. Most of those publications are performed in transport related magazines; two scientific articles were presented on the Intraregio conferences. Important result here also is the official publication the conference proceedings with ISBN registration, uploaded to the project website for public dissemination.
• 9 other activities (mailings, visits, letters). In most of the cases these are activities like information days or meeting with partners or investors, where the Intraregio project was not the main topic, but was discussed together with other issues.
List of Websites:
www.intraregio.eu
Michelle Perello - Consulta Europa Projects and Innovation
michelle.perello@consulta-europa.com
+39 340 160 89 45