Held on 13-15 May 2025 at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, the hybrid event put the spotlight on the progress and future of Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) in Europe.
Accelerating innovation
Organised by the European Commission, the CCAM Partnership and the FAME project, EUCAD 2025 underlined how automated transport can drive Europe’s green and digital transitions.
In the opening session, Marc Lemaître, Director-General of DG Research and Innovation (DG RTD), urged Europe to "embrace the disruption" and move faster from research to real-world deployment. He stressed the EU’s strategic investments across the innovation chain – from AI to user studies – and called for stronger coordination and speed.
Matthias Langemeyer, Head of Department for Green Research and Innovation in the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), highlighted the value of aligning funding tools like Horizon Europe, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), and the Innovation Fund to turn research into market-ready solutions.
“In CINEA, we work to ensure that research results can find their way to the market through our deployment programmes, like the Connecting Europe Facility or the Innovation Fund.”
Challenges and opportunities
Across three days, discussions focused on:
- Innovation acceleration: bridging research and deployment via the CCAM Partnership.
- Policy alignment: promoting harmonised regulations and cross-border cooperation.
- Scaling up: turning pilots into practice and ensuring interoperability.
The event also showcased 16 automated vehicles, brought together from various EU and national projects – a first in Europe – demonstrating live use cases on a 1.5 km test track, and featured an indoor exhibition with displays from many CINEA-managed research projects.
Looking ahead
Recent advances, from smart shuttles to automated logistics – prove Europe is leading in CCAM. However, scaling deployment requires faster action, deeper collaboration, and greater investment.
Key takeaways from the conference included:
- Move research into real-world solutions with active stakeholder engagement.
- Foster knowledge sharing and collective action across Europe.
- Embrace cross-sector, multidisciplinary collaboration to ensure that technology serves society!
CINEA also launched a new Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) webpage and presented a CORDIS Results Pack featuring 15 CCAM projects, managed by the Agency, at the event.
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Details
- Publication date
- 21 May 2025
- Author
- European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency