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In 2007, four research projects - RIMAROCC, IRWIN, SWAMP and P2R2C2 - were let by the “Road Owners Getting to Grips with Climate Change” Project Executive Board (PEB) of the ERA-NET ROAD Programme. At the conclusion of this programme, a final conference is being organised on 8 & 9 December 2010, in Cologne, Germany to present the findings and recommendations. The event will expose practical outputs that can be applied across Europe, and will be important in facilitating the understanding of this research across the funding member states. FEHRL is organising the event in collaboration with the German Federal Highway Research Institute, BASt. The conference is free of charge and will be held in English. INVITATION + Draft Programme + Registration link (.pdf).

In order to establish interest and cooperation in the 2011 FP7 EC calls, FEHRL has organised a Registration Page where members can indicate their interests in proposals. This list will be used to help establish links between partners and put different interested experts in touch with each other to form successful proposals. It will also be used by the FEHRL office to help support different activities. A full list with information on the listed proposals is available here (.pdf). Please forward the page link to your colleagues.

 PILOT4SAFETY is a €1.3M DG MOVE project that kicked off on 1 June 2010. Six partners from across Europe – ASTRAL, CDV, Generalitat de Catalunya, Prefecture of Thessaloniki, Randers Municipality, and FEHRL - are working together to contribute to the implementation of coherent safety procedures for the European road network, based on Directive 2008/96/CE of the European Parliament. In order to do so, this project is focusing on developing curricula and tools for the auditing and inspections of secondary roads in a group of EU Regions tailor made to the needs of regional/local authorities, as well as reaching an agreement between the involved regions about the acceptance of a common training curricula and the exchange of safety experts. Leading the project is Dr. Adewole Adesiyun from FEHRL. The project will run for 24 months. To keep up-to-date with this project’s developments, please consult the project website: http://pilot4safety.fehrl.org.

 The FP7 Coordination and Support action, DETRA (Developing the European Transport Research Alliance), kicked-off on June 1st 2010. Partners gathered in early June to set the groundwork for this €1,0M project. With Steve Phillips, FEHRL, as Project Coordinator, the alliance consists of the Lyon Declaration signatories - ECTRI, FERSI, FEHRL, EURNEX, HUMANIST, ISN and NEARCTIS. Addressing the Grand Challenges of the European Research Area objectives in transport, DETRA will produce five major outputs covering the main strategic issues to be addressed in shaping a coherent Transport ERA programme for 2020. The project will run for 28 months. For further information, please consult the Detra website: http://detra.fehrl.org.

Mr. Ruud Smit from The Netherlands, RWS DVS, has been appointed as the Forever Open Road Programme Manager. In this role, Mr Smit will work with the forum of FOR Champions to help build and sustain the FOR programme and the related events. The objectives are to get FOR on the move within the community of the FOR Champions themselves by the end of 2010; to broaden the participation in FOR from FEHRL members and other stakeholders in 2011 and to help the forum of FOR Champions in positioning FOR to the European Commission and Member States in order to secure FOR in FP8 and in ERANET-ROAD/TRANSPORT by 2013. This role will come into effect on 1 September 2010. Mr Smit will be working from the FEHRL office in Brussels, Belgium.

The European Commission has published 51 new calls as part of the FP7 2011 work programmes. Some of these calls have been published on the FEHRL Opportunities page. For a full list of calls available, please visit the CORDIS website.

EC DG Research has launched an open consultation as part of the Interim Evaluation of FP7. This exercise is to examine progress and provide recommendations to help both the implementation of FP7, as well as contributing ideas for the possible next Framework Programme.

The June edition of the UK Highways Agency's Traffic Incident Management Bulletin reports on the use of an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) called the Incident Support Imaging System (ISiS).  Coincidently,  EC's DG MOVE hosted a conference on encouraging the civilian use of UAS.

A short article on FOR, entitled "Launch of new concept for Europe's road", was published in the 24 June 2010, European Voice, special report on Research. The European Voice is the main English language weekly newspaper in Brussels.

The NORDIC, Road and Transport Research magazine has published articles on two of FEHRL's projects, Re-Road and Persuade. To read the articles, please click on the titles. For further information about either of the projects, please click on the logo to take you to the projects website.

•    Re-road: Optimizing the Potential in Recycling of Asphalt

•    Persuade: EU Noise project