Activities with US TRB

The signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between ECTRI and TRB took place on Sunday 22 January 2006, during the International Reception of the TRB Annual Session.

The document was signed by ECTRI Chairman, George Giannopoulos from HIT and Robert Skinner, Executive Director of US TRB, in presence of Mike Meyer, Vice President of the Executive Committee of TRB and future President for 2006. An official ECTRI delegation of representatives as well as official from the European Union travelled to Washington for this occasion.

Following this signature, an action plan for 2006-2008 was proposed and accepted during the International Activities Committee of the TRB.

This action plan was composed of 10 points :

1. Arrangement of a scanning tour of U.S research managers to European leading research institutes and viceversa.

2. Participation of TRB selected researchers in Young Researchers Seminar organized by ECTRI together with FEHRL and FERSI in Brno, Czech Republic in May 2007.

3. Publishing of an informative article on ECTRI in Transportation News and an article on TRB activities in ECTRI Newsletter.

4. Active participation of ECTRI members in the TRB committees.

5. Active participation of ECTRI in TRB Annual Conferences (expert presentations in sessions, an exhibition booth).

6. Regular exchange of information on the elaboration of transport and research strategic documents and key research events on both U.S. and European sides.

7. Strengthening of the U.S. participation in the COST projects through a permanent exchange of information on the COST activities.

8. Building up research cooperation possibilities between U.S. and European research bodies by exploring the means of the EU Framework Programmes and of the corresponding U.S. research programmes (e.g. NSF programmes, TCRP, NCHRP, etc.).

9. Proposing a European flavor (Special Europe session or key-note European Speaker to other session) to next TRB Annual meetings.

10. Creating a joint Committee or Working Group on Future Transport Research Need.

For 2009 a new action plan is under preparation.

In February 2009, the Working Group 10 (action 10) released its final report about "EU/US Transport Research Collaboration: Challenges and opportunities". This report was presented to EU Commissioner Potocnik on 17 February 20009, in Brussels, Belgium. A French version of this report is available: "Collaboration Union Européenne – États-Unis d’Amérique dans le domaine de la recherche".