Shift2Rail awards 17 grants for its Call for Proposals 2019

The Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking (JU) will fund 17 projects worth €148.6 million under its 2019 Call for Proposals for Research and Innovation activities. Shift2Rail’s co-funding will amount up to €74.8 million. The new projects aim to accelerate the transition towards the next generation of railway systems in Europe.

The Shift2Rail JU Members will undertake six of the new projects selected in the Call for Proposals 2019. Members’ activities will have a total value of €130.9 million, co-funded by Shift2Rail up to €57.6 million.

Additionally, 11 Open Call projects have been selected for funding, open for applications to any entity in the EU and associated Horizon 2020 countries. These projects have a total value of €17.7 million, 97 per cent of which will be funded by the Shift2Rail JU.

In total, 203 participants will develop new solutions for railway systems under the 2019 Call for Proposals. SMEs represent 30 per cent of the entities selected in the Open Call projects.

Carlo Borghini, Executive Director of the Shift2Rail JU, expressed his high expectations for the selected projects: “These new projects will build up on the results of past work and will help bring our demonstrations even closer to the market. We will have the opportunity to present their achievements at InnoTrans 2020. We look forward to working together with our Members and other organisations through these projects to further develop innovative solutions to reshape the future railway system of Europe.’’

After this Call for Proposals, Shift2Rail will have cumulatively invested €635.5 million in Research and Innovation (R&I) activities, more than half of its 2014-2020 budget, which combined with the additional activities delivered by the Members until now reaches almost €800 million of railway R&I activated in three years.