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TyroSafe is sponsoring an online video competition to highlight the importance and raise awareness about the interactions between tyres, roads and safety. The "Tyrosafe Video Competition" is now open for submissions and will close on 26 February 2010. For full competition details, please go to the dedicated Tyrosafe website. Competition entries must be submitted on the Tyrosafe Youtube Channel.

The Commission has launched a reflection on the updating of its Transport policy, which included external studies evaluating past policies and defining future scenarios, as well as consultations with experts and stakeholders through specialised focus groups and through a high level stakeholders’ conference. The ideas put forward in this Communication are meant to stimulate further debate aimed at identifying policy options, without prejudging the formulation of concrete proposals in the next White Paper of 2010.

The Young Researchers Seminar 2009 took place on 3-5 June 2009 in Torino, Italy. The three YRS09 winners will be automatic finalists of the YEAR2010 project (Young European Arena of Research), a competition for early-stage researchers who are doing research in the area of surface transport. This event will take place during the TRA2010 Conference in Brussels, in June next year. We encourage all the young researchers to participate to this competition: submit your abstracts before 1 March 2010 at http://year2010.fehrl.org.

As part of the European Economic Recovery Plan, the Commission is launching three Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in close cooperation with industry on "Factories of the Future", "Energy-efficient Buildings" and "Green Cars" to provide EUR 3.2 billion of support for long-term "smart" research investment in the manufacturing, construction and automotive sectors.

The HEAVYROUTE project will present its final results at the HEAVYROUTE FINAL SEMINAR taking place in Brussels on 9-10 June 2009. The FINAL AGENDA Invitation is now available (please click on the title) or you can also find it posted on the knowledge center. To register, please go to the dedicated web page.

The Slovenian CERTAIN seminar finished successfully on May 7. It focused on the presentation of results from EU co-funded projects in the field of road infrastructure. It was organized by ZAG Ljubljana, the coordinator of CERTAIN. The seminar was held in Bled as one of the 6 similar events performed in mother languages of the hosting country. Most presentations were held in Slovenian language (with two of them in Croatian and one in Serbian) and were intended for to the non-expert public. (more)

Meeting in Brno, Czech Republic, the General Assembly of FEHRL this week elected the CSIR as an Associate of FEHRL.  This important step in FEHRL’s cooperation with CSIR builds on the long-established links with both FEHRL and its members.  These links were demonstrated through strong support of an associate status with the application sponsored by DVS Rijkswaterstaat, VTI, IBDiM and NPRA.  The active participation will be ensured through the Transport Infrastructure Research Group of CSIR Built Environment.

Together with the Chairmen of ECTRI, EURNEX and Humanist,  FEHRL President, Claude Van Rooten, signed the Brno Commitment on Research and Innovation for Urban Mobility.  Bringing together the key research organisations in the field of urban transport,  the signatories commit themselves to work with the relevant stakeholders, municipalities and regions, European Commission and the private sector to tackle the key challenges of sustainable urban transport.

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has announced its call for independent experts opening on Thursday 14 May 2009. The call is addressed to individuals for the establishment of a database of independent experts to provide expertise in support of evaluations and of implementation of the EIT and of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). All information will be available as of 14 May 2009 on the Experts page at: http://eit.europa.eu.

Thousands of researchers, companies and successful projects gathered to see what has been achieved in the past year, and to plan and network for next year’s great science and research projects. FEHRL's booth was actively visited, and not only for the nice view on Prague or to play with the cars on our ever-popular bridge! Posters and videos presented the FP7 projects Direct-Mat, Re-road and Tyrosafe as well as the FP6 projects CERTAIN, HeavyRoute, Arches and Spens.