What`s next in U.S., China, South Korea and Japan?
To explore opportunities for international collaboration and to complement the strategic planning of the well-established road transport research (RTR) ecosystem in Europe, VDI/VDE-IT analysed developments and objectives of four established international markets, i.e. China, Japan, South Korea and the United States of America. The analysis covers the topical areas environment, electrification, automation and connectivity, urban mobility, freight and logistics as well as road safety. For these areas, the factsheets summarise relevant innovation policy goals, funding programmes and ongoing and planned road transport research activities. A map provides a list of road transport players from the value chain, research and development institutes and mobility service providers for connectivity services to respective innovation policy actors. The factsheets shed light on specific socio-economic developments and impacts of the pandemic influencing research and development in road transport. The countries were profiled regarding their strategic direction for road transport research they are going to take. The information on the factsheets have been validated by experts from each country in several dialogues. The factsheets shall work as living documents to be updated in case of important new developments.
The analysis for the factsheets mark the starting point for a strategic process to seek potential for collaboration and to thrive competition. The process is facilitated by the project FUTURE-HORIZON. The project aims at supporting the European Commission, the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) and European partnerships of authorities, research institutes and industry to align strategies, policies and funding programmes in road transport research in accordance to international benchmarks. The project is funded by the European Union under the framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon 2020.
