The project aimed to contribute to the enhancement of the transport sector by fostering a better match between the human resources needs and the offer of skills to make railways a more competitive and innovative sector. The SKILLRAIL project devoted significant efforts to design and launch a sustainable framework, EURAIL ('European University of Railway'), for creation, dissemination and transfer of knowledge within the railway sector.

The purpose was to contribute to European surface transport research programme implementation and to the enhancement of the sector by fostering a better match between: the human resources needs to make railways a more competitive and innovative sector, and the offer of skills coming out of the different research based education and training institutions across Europe. In brief, the project set out to:

• disseminate the vision and the intense ongoing change process in the railway sector with the aim of contributing to a change in the public image of railways;
• highlight the social and industrial benefits accumulated from rail;
• provide new concepts and skills for young people by offering disciplines based on recent research results;
• demonstrate and disseminate the need of advanced high technology engineering in the future of railways;
• demonstrate and disseminate the need of additional domains of knowledge that should complement engineering, such as economics, management, sociology, human factors, etc;
• make evidence (foster and disseminate) that new job opportunities will be open in the railway sector and in other transport sectors as a result of the transfer of knowledge from the research domain to technical industrial applications with a potential for a strong innovative content.

With respect to women and shaping the railways of tomorrow, the SKILLRAIL objectives were:

• to identify and develop actions promoting and supporting women participation for the benefit of outstanding railway transports research and industry;
• to disseminate the potential of gender diversity added value in research fields relevant to the greening of surface transports;
• to raise awareness of high skilled job opportunities for women in railway science, research and innovation, by means of seminars, workshops/events;
• to disseminate best practices in promoting and supporting women participation in railway transport research.