Shift2Rail Call for Proposals Receives 43 Requests Worth €113.3MM

Written by David Burroughs, News & Features Writer, International Railway Journal
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Carlo Borghini, Executive Director of S2R. Photo via: shift2rail.org.

Europe’s Shift2Rail (S2R) research initiative has received 43 requests for a combined €113.3 million in funding in its 2020 call for proposals, around 50% more than the €75.4 million in available funding.

The projects, which are worth a total of €185.8m, include eight proposals submitted under the call for members, while 35 proposals were submitted under the open call. The call included 19 research topics of which eight are open to S2R members and 11 to non-members.

Following the allocation of the 2020 funding, S2R will have invested €770.2 million in research and innovation since 2016.

Last year, S2R published the inaugural edition of its Catalogue of Solutions, which offers railway executives and buyers a clearer picture of what the rail solutions of the future will look like.

“Despite the critical situation we are in, such a promising number of proposals demonstrates the rail sector’s commitment and capacity to meet new challenges with resilience,” says S2R Executive Director Carlo Borghini. “Rail research and innovation has an important role to play in Europe’s recovery, and S2R together with its members and partners stands ready to deliver.”

S2R will now begin the process of evaluating the proposals, working with a pool of highly qualified independent experts. The results are expected to be announced by the end of July, with the projects beginning in the last quarter of 2020.

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