Research and Innovation: Protecting the European rail supply industry’s competitive edge

With this document UNIFE calls on the European institutions to establish the successor of the Europe´s Rail Joint Undertaking in the next European Research Framework Programme (FP10 or equivalent). R&I is a key success factor in maintaining the competitiveness and global market leadership of the European rail supply industry.

The document highlights why a coordinated European approach to R&I is vital to accelerate the overcoming of the historic and obstructive fragmentation in the rail system and to deliver harmonised European-wide solutions, making the European rail system more agile, innovative, resilient, capacity-performant, achieve the goals of the Single European Railway Area (SERA) and Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T, including the comprehensive network) and make Europe more competitive. The position paper describes why rail R&I is a key success factor in strengthening the Single Market, delivering a harmonized Single European Rail Area and expanding the competitiveness and global market leadership of the European rail supply industry as well as the European economy as a whole and describes key elements for rail R&I in Europe.

As the foremost provider of European rail products and a global leader internationally, the European Rail Supply Industry depends on its research & innovation (R&I) capabilities^[1] to remain at the forefront of transportation needs and overcome our industry's competitive challenges. Demonstrating its commitment to next-generation technology, the European rail supply industry reinvests 3.6% of its annual revenue to R&I activities. With an annual global market growth of 3% and an expected value of 240 billion Euro by 2029^[2], the European rail supply industry is a global leader in the design, manufacturing and maintenance of railway systems and products, corresponding to over 650,000 jobs in Europe

[1] Report EC Expert Group on Competitiveness on European rail supply industry - https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/37829

[2] World Rail Market Study, forecast 2024 to 2029 - https://www.unife.org/news-resources/wrms/