With a packed audience of nearly 230 attendees, the 4th edition of the FORM Forum 2023 brought some of the greatest minds in the automotive research together again. The leading event combined conference sessions with an exhibition, which welcomed 12 exhibitors and 25 speakers with the aim of showcasing their latest innovations and research, ideas, good practice cases, and forward-thinking projects. To view the photos from the event click here.

The European Automotive Research Partners Association (EARPA) proudly hosted its highly anticipated event, the Road Mobility Forum 2023 (FORM Forum) which took place from 17 – 18 October in Brussels.

Under the theme, ‘Transitioning Road Mobility – towards resilience and circularity in a digital world,’ the biannual event gathered EARPA Members, researchers, and policymakers in the field of automotive research for two days of insightful discussions and networking opportunities.

The leading event combined conference sessions with an exhibition, which welcomed 12 exhibitors and 25 speakers with the aim of showcasing their latest innovations and research, ideas, good practice cases, and forward-thinking projects.

The first part of the of event consisted of sessions dedicated to EARPA Members, which included internal workshops, where Members discussed upcoming position papers and collaboration opportunities for calls related to funded research and innovation programmes.

Just prior to the Networking Dinner, EARPA President, Christof Schernus delivered a warm and inspiring welcoming speech where he emphasised the excellence of EARPA’s independent automotive research community.

Furthermore, he revealed EARPA’s High Level Position Paper 2023, the teamwork result of EARPA experts, highlighting the necessity of a system approach to ensure an efficient future European road mobility system. EARPA’s vision for Europe’s transport and mobility is based on this need for a system approach, delivering benefits for society, planet and users.

“You cannot look at the mobility system on its own, it has to be looked at on a societal level, which can be seen in EARPA’s High Level Position Paper,’’ said Christof Schernus, EARPA President.

Highlights of the second day included two enlightening keynote speeches, Young Researcher Elevator pitches, a series of technical presentations, and a thought-provoking panel discussion focused on skills for sustainability. These sessions provided invaluable insights into the latest developments, trends, and challenges facing the automotive research sector in Europe.

The next big meeting for the EARPA community and the sector will take place from 05 – 06 March 2024 at the Sofitel Hotel in Brussels for EARPA’s Spring Meeting 2024.

To learn more about the FORM Forum 2023, visit https://www.earpa.eu/earpa/formforum
For more information about EARPA: https://www.earpa.eu/

Form Form 2023 Press Release (172.80 KB)

The EARPA High-level Position Paper 2023 is now available! This high-level position paper seeks to highlight the aspects that will be considered by the EARPA Foresight Groups, to make suggestions for forthcoming European Research Programmes and to be at the heart of our members’ future R&I activities. Thanks to all those who helped craft it, and make sure to read the position paper below. Read it here.

EARPA member Eurecat is leading different European projects contributing to create and develop innovative solutions to move towards a more sustainable, lighter, safer and circular future automotive and mobility sector.

In this newsletter issue, we would like to highlight the research advancements done in the MARBEL project, manufacturing an innovative and competitive lightweight battery with the objective to accelerate the mass market take-up of electric and hybrid vehicles, and the SELFY project, developing a toolbox made up of collaborative solutions with the objective to improve the resilience of the Cooperative Connected Automated Mobility sector.

Stay up to date on the advancements of these projects by subscribing to the community of interest:

• SELFY community of interest: http://eepurl.com/h7cP7f
• MARBEL community of interest: http://eepurl.com/ht5fXv

The European SELFY project is to develop a self-assessment and self-protection toolbox to enhance the security and resilience of Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) systems against potential cyber-attacks and malicious actions.

This is at a time when around 50 million connected and automated cars are expected to be on the road in Europe by 2026. Learn more about the project here.

The SELFY project consortium is willing to address the kind of data to be generated, gathered, and monitored; advanced data processing to identify potential threats; developing new tools to add to the ability to adapt and cope with cyber threats by lessening their impact, and uptake and deployment of services and solutions in this field. SELFY tools are to ensure privacy, confidentiality, and integrity, as well as improve accessibility, in the collaborative CCAM environment.

The solutions developed by the project will first be validated with simulation and in a lab. Three scenarios will then be built in real and controlled environments to demonstrate the toolbox’s performance and usefulness in a collaborative and cooperative environment.

The SELFY project consortium is led by Eurecat and made up of partners from eight countries, including seven EARPA members: Tecnalia, Applus Idiada, CEA, Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Virtual Vehicle, Eindoven University of Technology and FEV.

Learn more about the project through this video:
SELFY – Self assessment, protection & healing tools for a trustworthy and resilient CCAM – YouTube

E-VOLVE stands for Electric Vehicle Optimized for Life, Value and Efficiency.

The Cluster of European projects was created in 2019 with the Horizon 2020 projects ACHILES, EVC1000, FITGEN, SYS2WHEEL, TELL and CEVOLVER. The Cluster is now continued with projects from Horizon EUROPE.

E-VOLVE Coordinators trust that together as a virtual cluster they will produce a greater impact by delivering innovations that cover a wide range of EVs components, designed especially for the new (3rd) generation of EVs to meet the future mobility needs in both urban environment and inter-city trips

The Cluster will produce greater impact acknowledging the importance of connecting parallel R&D activities funded on complementary areas, as stated by the European Commission. The member projects in the E-VOLVE Cluster have decided to prove the higher potential of synergies between projects. As a result, E-VOLVE Coordinators trust that together as a virtual cluster they will produce a greater impact by delivering innovations that cover a wide range of EVs components, designed especially for the new (3rd) generation of EVs to meet the future mobility needs in both urban environment and inter-city trips, while meeting as well the requirements in energy efficiency, usability and cost that the market demands.

The E-VOLVE virtual Cluster focuses on developing groups of components that, working all together in synergy, can meet the future requirements in energy efficiency, fast charging and increased driving range.

The cluster is managed by VIRTUAL VEHICLE Research GmbH and Armengaud Innovate GmbH.

Learn more here 

VERSAPRINT is set to redefine the battery landscape, focusing on enhancing safety, sustainability, and performance. This ongoing battery project has strong participation from EARPA members as coordinator and partners.

Learn more about the project here.

Launched this summer, the Next generation models for advanced battery electronics (NEMO) project includes two EARPA Partners, VUB-MOBI and IAV. NEMO is a project funded by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) to address the scarcity of knowledge regarding batteries’ overall state when their use leads to suboptimal utilisation issues and demonstrate optimised battery management. The partners seek to develop new physics-based battery models that allow for significant performance improvements for stationary and automotive use cases. Have a look at the project’s website for more information.

The European Commission and the United Kingdom have reached a political agreement on the UK’s participation in Horizon Europe, the EU’s research, and innovation programme, and Copernicus, the EU’s world-leading Earth observation programme. It is expected that as of 1 January 2024, researchers and organisations in the UK will be able to participate in Horizon Europe with their counterparts in EU Member States and will have access to Horizon Europe funding. More information online.

The European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) celebrated its 20^th anniversary with an evening reception and conference from 05 – 06 July 2023 at the Palais des Académies in Brussels last week. During the ERTRAC reception, on 05 July 2023, EARPA organised an informal farewell to both Josef Affenzeller and Professor Zissis Samaras who are retiring. Both Josef and Zissis have been key actors within EARPA for a long time, as well as in representing EARPA in Brussels.

The two-day event brought together highly respected participants, speakers, and the European road research community to foster knowledge sharing and discuss innovations for mobility.

EARPA’s contribution to ERTRAC and its anniversary event

Over the last 20 years, EARPA has actively supported ERTRAC with other founding associations such as EUCAR, CLEPA and CONCAWE in helping to advance roadmaps for relevant R&I topics and provide guidance to ERTRAC working groups.

On the 06 July 2023 at the conference, many key figures and EARPA members took to the stage in about every panel session to demonstrate their knowledge, insights and innovations in transport research.

The opening session moderated by Rosalinde van der Vlies (European Commission) brought together Prof. Zissis Samaras (LAT), Josef Affenzeller (AVL List GmbH) and Simon Edwards (Ricardo) to discuss ERTRAC’s history and about how European transport research has evolved during the last 20 years.

Following that Adrià Ferrer (IDIADA) and Margriet Van Schijndel (Eindhoven) spoke about research efforts to support the European road safety objectives and the long-term vision towards connected, cooperative and automated mobility. Thilo Bein (Fraunhofer) also moderated the final session on circularity and competitiveness and and Simon gave an outstanding summary of the entire conference.

For more information on the ERTRAC event click here.

Farewell to Josef Affenzeller & Zissis Samaras at the ERTRAC 20 Years Anniversary Conference
During the ERTRAC reception, on 05 July 2023, EARPA organised an informal farewell to both Josef Affenzeller and Professor Zissis Samaras who are retiring. Both Josef and Zissis have been key actors within EARPA for a long time, as well as in representing EARPA in Brussels.

Josef had been our president until 2014, and has represented our association for many years in organisations such as ERTRAC and EGVIA/EGVIAfor2Zero, just to mention a few. A personalised card game, with portraits of long-time colleagues and European Commission representatives he’s been meeting with, has been handed over to him on behalf of EARPA.

Furthermore, we’ve also said goodbye to Zissis as our long-term representative as ERTRAC Vice-Chair and engine and emission expert. He has done a lot of exploratory work, paving the way for new approaches, joint visions as well as new regulations. The very last Calvin and Hobbes cartoon quite well shows how he enjoyed to start such initiatives from a blank page, making something remarkable. Thus, EARPA offered him a framed print of the cartoon.

We wish both of them very well and lots of pleasure with everything they can do now in the new freedom of retirement.