Boosting the impact of EU funded research in the field of freight transport and logistics to support competitiveness and address the climate challenge

Boosting the impact of EU funded research in the field of freight transport and logistics to support competitiveness and address the climate challenge

“Achieving a seamless integration and harmonisation of transport modes building a truly integrated freight transport and logistics system is instrumental to deliver on key EU Priorities, namely: the Green Deal, an Economy that Works for People, A Europe fit for the digital age and to make a stronger Europe in the world”.
Fernando Liesa, Secretary General of ALICE

Brussels, 18. Feb. 2021

Freight transport and logistics are the backbone of our economy. During the unprecedented responses triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic time, the logistics sector once again demonstrated its vital importance, ranging from ensuring delivery of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and vaccines to food for vulnerable groups. While facing significant disruptions from closed borders and lockdowns, the sector has shown great resilience and efficiency. The success of today’s logistics sector has benefited from decades of EU investments in research and innovation (R&I) advancing innovation in the logistics sector through various Framework Programmes, e.g. FP5 (1998-2002), FP6 (2002-2006), FP7 (2007-2013), and the ongoing HORIZON 2020 (2014 – 2020).

The BOOSTLOG project, commencing in 2021, is a 3 year project funded by the EU through HORIZON 2020, aiming to boost the impact generated from EU funded R&I projects to contribute to EU policy objectives, address societal challenges and increase EU’s competitiveness.

Launching the BOOSTLOG project

During the 3 year duration, the project will:

• systematically and logically summarise key results and outcomes from more than 160 EU funded R&I projects and make them available and accessible to a wide range of audiences;
• develop and implement a strategy to overcome barriers for deployment of EU funded R&I projects results, thus accelerating the innovation uptake by e.g. creating an Innovation Marketplace;
• identify and prioritise R&I gaps in logistics research for today’s and tomorrow’s needs to be addressed by funding programmes (e.g. Horizon Europe);
• facilitate knowledge exchange on best practices in R&I public funding in the logistics sector at regional, national, and European level;
• reach out and engage with more researchers and companies to participate in future R&I projects and valorise previous results.

The project consortium is led by the Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe, ALICE, and consists of 12 additional partners representing different stakeholders: R&D (ZLC, TKI DINALOG, ICCS, Fraunhofer IML and TU Delft), government (TKI DINALOG), Company (HACON, FIT, Fundación Valenciaport), Civil Society (Smart Freight Centre SFC) and Collaborative Networks and Clusters (VIL, CLOSER and ERTICO-ITS Europe).

The BOOSTLOG consortium will launch a series of awards to recognise the success of innovation implementations from EU funded R&I project outcomes and the innovation Pioneers. The awards will promote these cases broadly towards the different stakeholders group. The aim is to support the sector to develop and implement more innovative solutions and demonstrate benefits of EU funding to the sector innovation. The awards will be a great opportunity to showcase successful examples, thus  increasing governments R&I investment opportunities to create value for society.

You are welcome to join the Launch Event of the BOOSTLOG project. For more information about the Launch Event, please visit the event webpage:  

About ALICE: The European Technology Platform ALICE is set-up to develop a comprehensive strategy for research, innovation and market deployment of logistics and supply chain management innovation in Europe. The platform will support and assist and advise the European Commission into the implementation of the EU Program for research, e.g. Horizon Europe in the area of Logistics. For more information about ALICE, please visit the website: https://www.etp-logistics.eu/, follow ALICE on LinkedIn and join our LinkedIn discussion group, sign up for the ALICE newsletter here.

This project BOOSTLOG-Boosting impact generation from research and innovation on integrated freight transport and Logistics system has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 101006902.