3 minute read / February 17, 2026
Last week I was in Brussels to attend the 9th edition of the RTR (Results from Road Transport Research) Conference.
It has been a number of years by now that I regularly attend this event to keep myself informed about the progress in EC-funded road transport projects.
This year there were several areas discussed: Air Quality, Road Infrastructure, Logistics, Urban Mobility, Road Safety as well as what produced within a few European Partnerships (as they are called): 2Zero (Towards Zero-emission road transport), BATT4EU (Batteries for Europe) CCAM (Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility).
It was a great opportunity of learning from other companies experience while meeting new and old acquaintances coming from several countries and different professional sectors.
There were at least a couple of aspects which didn’t satisfy me, though.
The first one is practical: during the 3-day event there were presented 95 EC-funded projects across several parallel sessions. I understand this is one of the largest dissemination events of transport projects, but it is impossible to attend all, unless every company would send several collaborators to the event, which would be too expensive. Despite presentations will be provided, it doesn’t generate the same added value as attending the presentation in person and, in case, asking questions live.
The second aspect is the technology described in these projects. The majority of them belonged to the 2021 and 2022 Horizon Europe calls for proposals and the results/solutions presented may be already obsolete by now.
We all know that large conferences request papers one year in advance to select them, so what is presented in any conference is usually at least 12-18 months old from its conception.
In this case, though, we are talking of 2021 calls whose topics were certainly conceived, discussed and written on 2020, six years ago that for advanced technology means geological eras ago.
Some projects were showing results using AI tools available a few years ago.
While listening to all these presentations, I thought about the argument that criticises the EU as being terribly late in achieving a decent degree of innovation. Well, when learning about pilots held years ago and using the technologies of those times, I tended to agree with this criticism.
I think we should radically change our approach and:
This could be a way to ensure cutting edge technologies are used and, most importantly, the projects results could still make sense for the industry. Otherwise, we will fund endless pilots that once the project is finished – and so its funding – no further improvement will take place.
I have been involved in EU projects since mid 1990s when, for a number of reasons, the evolution of technologies was taking place at a smaller rate than now. If Europe would like to find its influential place in the world, it must shorten the process from the idea conception to its implementation. This would make it a product more easily exploitable.
Stefano Mainero
EPN Consulting R&I Founder & CEO
Article written by human beings without any use of AI. EPN Consulting Research and Innovation Ltd. copyright 2026
