It is a wrap up for RTR 2025 and it was a resounding success!
The 8th edition of the Results from Road Transport Research Conference (RTR Conference) attracted its largest audience to date: more than 500 participants on-site and 400 participants joining online! This amazing result emphasises the importance of pre-competitive collaborative research in road transport at the European level. This high level of participation proves that the RTR conference has reached a pivotal role in supporting the European R&I ecosystem in all the fields of road transport: decarbonisation, infrastructure, road safety, digitalisation, urban mobility, and freight and logistics.
The opening session kicked off the conference with strong words from our partners from the European Institutions: Rosalinde van der Vlies, Director of the Clean Planet Directorate in DG RTD highlighted the need to put R&I at the heart of the economy to ensure that we can achieve Competitiveness, Affordability, Circularity and Inclusiveness (CACI) in the road transport sector. Erik von Breska, Director for Investment, Innovative & Sustainable Transport from DG MOVE echoed this statement and reminded the audience how much the future of the sector depends on R&I; he stressed the role the ongoing high-level dialogue, recently launched by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, will play and the need to further support cross border test beds for clean and automated vehicles. Pablo Perez-Illana, Deputy Head of Unit for Horizon Europe in CINEA reflected on the need to further demonstrate impact of our R&I activities and on the importance to have synergies by design between different funding programmes, for example between Horizon Europe and CEF.
CCAM Association Chairman, Christian Merkt brought up the international competition and underlined how the EU approach balance the societal needs and the pioneering spirit of innovation to unlock benefits of new mobility services for people and goods. Michael Lippert, the President of BEPA, reminded us of the need to sustain investments in key and future technologies. As the transport sector is a major market for batteries, and automotive is the lion share of that market, it was a logical step for BEPA to become more involved in the RTR Conference.
Our Chairman, Stephan Neugebauer closed the opening session with a very clear call to continue having a strong support for pre-competitive research and innovation activities in the future. While results from EU-funded projects cannot always be linked directly to product development, demonstrating impact is key for all of us. Stephan explained how the three pillars of Horizon Europe are connected and essential for the road transport sector, and highlighted the importance of pre-competitive collaborative activities funded under Pillar 2. Echoing the words of Rosalinde van der Vlies, he reflected on activities that could be implemented to create impact. Flagship initiatives, putting together research results, industrial investments, new infrastructures and business models, could play a role.
2Zero sessions, and related projects, brought great insights on the latest advancements in the field
15 2Zero funded projects took the floor over three days and five sessions to present their achievements. On the 11th February, the first 2Zero session, co-chaired by Guido Sacchetto (EC DG RTD) and Christof Schernus (FEV), our Pillar 2 co-leader, was dedicated to the development of advanced solutions for charging of electric vehicles benefiting both the users and the grid. eCharge4Drivers, an EGVI-funded project, presented its final results, and three 2Zero projects (FLOW, XL-CONNECT and DriVe2X) presented their intermediate results. The session led to a very lively discussion, in which, among other topics, the benefits and challenges related to vehicle-to-grid, its potential impact on battery degradation, the cost-benefit for the users, but also for the DSOs, the TSOs … were extensively discussed.
The following day, several 2Zero projects presented their results over the two sessions (8 and 11) dedicated to innovative components for more efficient EVs.
Our pillar 1 co-leader, Damian Backes from Institute for Automotive Engineering (ika-RWTH) co-moderated the sessions with Joao Duarte Carrilho from CINEA.
In session 8, EM-Tech, MAXIMA, HEFT, Voltcar and CliMAFlux presented and discussed the cumulative challenge they are addressing: improving efficiency, reducing the use of permanent magnets and critical raw materials, and ensuring recyclability while reducing costs. Individually, these targets might seem (relatively) easy to achieve, but the real challenge is to achieve all of them in a single project, and it looks like our 2Zero projects are on the right track!
The second session (11) moved on with presentation of projects addressing power-electronic with the 2Zero project SCAPE and the only project from the Chips-JU invited in the RTR 2025 conference, HiEFFICIENT.
During the last day of the RTR Conference, ZEFES, EMPOWER and ESCALATE presented their key results in further developments of BEV and FCEV trucks, the related infrastructure needs, including megawatt charging systems, and discussed the project contribution to the AEVETO cluster, in which Clean Hydrogen Partnership projects are also integrated.
eBRT2030 project also joined the session, and presented its first results and demonstration activities in Barcelona, Athens and Prague, as well as the international activities carried out, based on outcomes from previously funded projects ASSURED and SolutionsPLUS.
An energising session to start the day, under the leadership of Eric Cerneaz and Ian Faye, our pillar 1 co-leader.
The second 2Zero session of this last day was dedicated to materials for light and safe Green Vehicles, where FLAMINGo and Flexcrash presented their latest findings. Katerina Deliali and Thilo Bein, our Vice-chair, moderated a lively discussion in which we touched upon further research needs in this key area.
How to achieve circularity in the automotive industry? A multifaceted challenge addressed in our Plenary session.
Simon Edwards, the conference Chair, welcomed Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea (DG ENV), Thilo Bein (Fraunhofer LBF), Stefan Christiernin (Volvo Cars), Fabrice Stassin (BEPA) and Wolfgang Nuechter (Robert Bosch) during our plenary session on circularity.
Among the key topics discussed, we touched upon the existing regulatory landscape, the need for stable framework conditions, and economies of scale to be more competitive worldwide.
The role materials will play in the future, the challenges related to the recovery of valuable components, the still fragmented recycling industry and need for heavy investments in R&D in the coming years were also extensively discussed. This is key for electrification of road transport, with materials being used in electric vehicles but also in some other fields such as with semiconductors and electronics.
Circularity should act as a support to EU competitiveness, and could bring significant benefits to our strategic autonomy.
The concluding words
The main takeaway was the importance of coordination to help accelerate the deployment of results from funded research and increase the road transport sector’s competitiveness. The inclusion in the RTR2025 of projects from the CEF programme, highlighted the importance of building bridges that facilitate faster deployment. However, infrastructure support is not the only enabler to have more impact, and other opportunities, such as the Innovation Fund, or EIC, regional and Member States support were also highlighted by Jane Amilhat, Head of Unit Clean Transport Transitions in DG RTD.
Technological improvements are essential to support competitiveness; however, other key aspects such as user acceptance, affordability and inclusiveness are equally important and were discussed with Simon Edwards, the conference chair.
To enjoy the highlights of the conference, you can access all pictures taken during the event in our photo gallery (Password: RTR2025).
Additionally, you can soon rewatch the recordings of each session by visiting the RTR YouTube channel and accessing the presentations here (WeTransger link valid until 19 March 2025)
Mark your agenda for the 10th to 12th February, 2026. We look forward to seeing you again next year for the 9th edition of the RTR Conference!