Horizon Europe and the green transition interim evaluation support study : partnership evaluation report

An external expert, contracted by the European Commission, has produced an interim evaluation study about the CCAM Partnership and here are the final results. This report will feed the interim evaluation of Horizon Europe activities related to the Green Transition. The study presents the assessment of the Co-programmed European Partnership Connected Cooperative Automated Mobility (CCAM) against the evaluation criteria of relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, EU added value, additionality, directionality, international positioning and visibility, transparency and openness as well as phasing out preparedness.

Among the many evaluation criteria, 3 provide a positive outlook on the work done by the CCAM Partnership so far:

• Relevance: By coordinating R&I efforts, the CCAM partnership is developing and deploying solutions for the automation of road transport in Europe, which certainly contributes to Horizon-Europe priorities of digital transformation and to some extent, also to greenhouse gas reduction by traffic optimisation, reducing congestion and promoting shared mobility.
• EU Added value: The CCAM partnership provides significant added value by improving technical interoperability and reducing inefficiencies from fragmented national investments in CCAM R&I. It enables coordinated, large-scale innovation across Europe, which would be difficult to achieve through national funding alone while fostering international collaboration.
• Additionality: Beyond in-kind contributions, the CCAM partnership mobilises significant investment in operational activities that support the objectives outlined in the SRIA, with private sector investments reaching 62% of the target by 2023. The partnership demonstrates high leverage, particularly in innovation actions, reflecting a strong economic impact.

In the lessons and recommendations chapter, the study underlines areas for improvement in the CCAM Partnership:

• The partnership aligns with the EU Green Transition but needs to integrate environmental objectives into its core strategy further
• Support actions that synthesise knowledge across projects are valuable
• There is a need for a clearer framework to guide national road authorities in implementing connected and automated vehicles.

To overcome these challenges, recommendations have been proposed:

• Deepening collaboration with other enabling partnerships through joint initiatives
• Expanding Social Science and Humanities (SSH) research to explore broader societal and environmental impacts
• Strengthening the business case for automated driving
• Sufficient budget allocation for large-scale demonstrations in the partnership’s final phase to maximise the impact.