October CCAM Multicluster Meeting – Checkpoint for the CCAM Partnership

Kicked off with Christian Merkt (CCAM Chairman) and Andrea de Candido (EC DG RTD), the October edition of the CCAM Multicluster meeting took place in participation of almost 120 members (and more than 80 who joined online) eager and ready to make CCAM in road transport advance for the good of society.

Marzena Jougounoux (CCAM Head of office) provided background information, highlighting that 2024 is a checkpoint time for the CCAM Partnership when the stock of running projects’ results should be taken, and its impact on future calls for projects should be evaluated. This meeting will be thus crucial for the final phase of the Partnership under Horizon Europe. Hamid Zarghampour (CCAM Vice-Chairman) followed with his session, where he underlined how important is leveraging results from previous projects for future success. He then reminded the participants about the roles and mission of each of the seven CCAM clusters, in alignment with the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda priorities. This reminder was essential for the good rollout of the breakouts sessions that followed after.

The first series of breakout sessions aimed to answer 2 questions:

• What project results can be integrated into large-scale demonstrations?
• What research needs can be postponed till the next Framework Programme?

Clusters 2 to 6 worked out a series of answers, following many interesting inputs from the running CCAM Partnership projects that eagerly shared their preliminary results.

The second series of breakouts, which took place in the afternoon, challenged Clusters 1, 6, and 7 to answer how defined projects’ results can be better integrated into Cluster 1 and 7’s future calls for projects.

After lunch, 2 CCAM Partnership projects from the thematic area of “Societal aspects and people needs”, presented the research advancements and results.

Prof. Mauro Dell’ Amico from ICOOR Italy, representing the SINFONICA project, gave a series of recommendations that will help large-scale demonstrations deployment.

He was followed by Héctor Canas Hernandez from BABLE Smart Cities, who represented the MOVE2CCAM project. Héctor showcased the results of an analysis of CCAM user needs.

The super-charged day concluded with the following key takeaways:

• The discussions highlighted the crucial role of tools and instruments such as the Common Evaluation Methodology or the taxonomy from the FAME project. These tools provide a solid foundation for future projects.
• It is of utmost importance to consider testing exemptions and how to obtain them from the beginning of a project or even at the proposal preparation phase. Delaying this consideration to a later stage could potentially impede the launch of the demos.
• Other considerations were noted, aligned with the CCAM Partnership’s goals and ensuring that our efforts are directed towards the most impactful areas, e.a:
  • Safety and security are second to none
  • ODD coverage will be key. The CCAM Partnership can play an important role in supporting harmonisation between EU Member States through cross-border applications.
  • Working with local administrations and mobility planners is very important to ensure that demonstrated use cases answer the actual local needs
  • Strive for wide participation of users and customers in the demonstrations to understand their perceptions before and after the project.

Thank you to all CCAM Association members for their participation and high-level contributions, which have been instrumental to the progress of the CCAM Partnership work.