Overview
This project was an early-stage postgraduate research student competition. A kind of Transport Research Olympics to complement the goals of the Transport Research Arena conference (TRA2008) in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Students were asked to submit an abstract on-line under one of the YEAR2012 scientific pillars. This collection of submitted abstracts was hosted online on the YEAR2012 website and represented a showcase of European research and was open for viewing by all those interested in the field.
YEAR 2012 Scientific Pillars:
- Governance of the transport system
- Transport, mobility and infrastructure
- Safety and Security
- Energy, environment and resources
- Design and Production (vehicles, vessels and infrastructure)
- Complementarities of transport modes
Who was able to participate?
The competition was open to early-stage researchers registered in a college or university from across the European Union, EU Candidate Countries, Potential EU Candidate Countries and European Economic Area(•).
An early-stage researcher is defined as an undergraduate student in the final year of their programme or a postgraduate student in a PhD programme or in a postgraduate programme leading to a PhD. Programme leading to a PhD is defined as Stage 1 in a two stage programme or a Research Masters where it is common place to transfer from this into a PhD programme.
(•)= Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom.
The goal was to stimulate interest among young researchers in the conference and contributed to establishing it as the premier Transport event in the world. This activity directly supported the TRA event and reinforced its profile as a major European and internationally important conference.
All abstracts went go through an online judging review, after which the top 30 finalists were invited to attend the TRA2012 Conference in Athens to display their research in an exhibition space. The 30 finalists were judged a second time at the conference and the winner for each of the pillars was announced and presented during the conference, for an expected 1 500 delegates to observe.
The YEAR competition was be in two stages. In the first stage, up to 1 000 students submitted abstracts, clearly specifying the deliverables and practical outputs of their research. There was a network of about 100 coaches, experts in transport research, to encourage a wide participation from all over European and neighbouring countries. The abstracts were hosted on a website which constituted a showcase of early stage research in Europe. There were five categories, four for PhD research in each of the four pillar areas of the conference and a fifth future vision category in which students presented their vision of the future in the context of the work of ERTRAC.
The fifth category helped to disseminate the work of ERTRAC by encouraging many young researchers to read their future vision documents and develop their own ideas in this context. In the second stage, about 50 finalists were brought to the TRA2008 conference to present their work in the form of posters or audiovisual displays. There were gold, silver and bronze medals for each of the 5 categories and winners were featured prominently at the conference to stimulate interest among delegates, journalists and the general public. The exhibition was held in a prominent area to encourage a wide ranging discussion between students and delegates who constitute future potential employers and stakeholders in road transport.
Funding
Results
The outputs of the project were three-fold:
- The 47 finalists were given the opportunity to experience an international conference with 1 200 delegates and were given the chance to share their work with stakeholders and policy-makers from all over Europe.
- All 300 students who submitted an abstract online got to share their work with their peers, and compare their findings with fellow students, and perhaps from collaborations.
- Delegates that attended TRA08 had the opportunity to discuss wide-ranging research with students who had fresh and original ideas and who could potentially be recruited into their companies.
Strategy targets
Innovation for the future: technology and behaviour
A European Transport Research and Innovation Policy