International collaboration in transportation research - The HERMES Project

International collaboration in transportation research - The HERMES Project
In an increasingly interconnected world resulting from massively increased trade and cultural
exchange the way we produce, share and use knowledge must change. Major global challenges such
as climate change, energy supply, security of the citizen, etc., highlight the need for effective global
scientific and technological cooperation.

Nowhere is this more important than in the area of Transportation R&D because the challenges
transportation systems face such as congestion, safety, security, energy efficiency and the
environment are global concerns. Furthermore, the Transport Industry is one of the major drivers for
economic growth and its reach into every aspect of society cannot be overstated. An efficient and
effective transport system not only supports the economy with the movement of people and goods,
but its influence is much deeper. Most activities in scientific disciplines such as chemistry, physics,
computing, economics, psychology, logistics, as well as engineering, such as mechanical, civil,
electrical, electronic, are directly or indirectly associated with applications in transport.

In recognition of the above, the HERMES project was launched in 2011, supported by the European
Commission's FP7 programme, in response to the EC's call for "providing the means of enacting
productive international transport research cooperation in the future", and "encouraging
participation and dissemination of research results."

The project aims to create the conditions for closer international collaboration in transportation
research by:

     facilitating access to information on past and current transportation research carried out
      internationally through the creation of a "transport research database access portal"
     engaging researchers internationally to address the issues that inhibit a closer collaboration in
      transportation research and provide decision makers with a list of enabling policies to enhance
      international collaboration in transportation research

One of the most important elements to encouraging international collaboration in research is the
access to international knowledge, in other words, it is important to know what other regions of the
world are doing, learning from those results and either taking this work further or establishing a
dialogue between researchers to find solutions to common problems.

As the project Coordinator, Dr George Kotsikos, explains: "As a researcher, I have often found that
accessing transport research information from other regions of the world is a time consuming and
laborious task. Finding who does what and where, learning from their experiences and establishing a
dialogue with other researchers in other parts of the world can be very difficult. This is the why we
have undertaken as part of the HERMES project, the creation of a 'Transport Research Database
Access Portal', aiming to be a single entry point where researchers can access titles of research
projects and publications from around the world".

The importance of information access has long been recognised across the Atlantic, with the
Transportation Research Board of the National Academies (TRB) in the US leading the field.

Mr Stephen Godwin, (Director, Studies and Special Programs of the TRB) says: "The TRB has been
fairly extensively involved in disseminating and sharing information about research world-wide for
many years through participation on committees of internationally-oriented transportation
organizations; memoranda of understanding with other research organizations; dissemination of
international transportation bibliographic records world-wide; sponsoring and co-sponsoring
international workshops and conferences on transportation research topics; hosting loaned
personnel from other national research organizations to participate in TRB research; broadening its
200 standing technical committees to include as members experts from other nations, and expanding
TRB's Annual Meeting to encourage more participation by international transportation professionals
and researchers."

More recently, Japan recognised the importance of the availability of a centralised source for past
and present transportation research project activities carried out nationally and has established the
"J-Stage" research database, available in the English language for broader reach.

The second aspect of the HERMES project is to encourage a closer and sustained international
collaboration in transport research, as this is recognised to be the best means of creating fertile
conditions for research innovations, understanding, and common solutions to common problems.

Informal collaborations between researchers do take place through student exchanges, or visiting
professorships but these are based on personal contacts and are not sustained. It remains that
achieving a successful sustained collaboration across national borders is a task that has to cross,
linguistic, cultural and political divides in order to yield productive outcomes.

It is not an impossible task though. International collaboration in research within the EU is now the
norm. In fact, one of the successes of the European Union has been the establishment of the
"collaborative research programs". Over a relatively short period, Europe has become recognised as
the leading region for research and innovation excellence in the world. One of the reasons for this
success is also due to the dialogue that has been established between researchers within Europe.

Dr Kotsikos says: "One fact of human behaviour often overlooked by scientists and engineers is that
our thought process and our approach to problem solving are strongly influenced by the environment
and culture we grow up in. Working on a task with other cultures allows individuals to approach
problem solving in ways they would not normally consider. The dialogues that are developed during
this process can often lead to true innovations".

However, at the start of the European collaborative programmes there was scepticism and concerns
in individual states over the loss or dilution of the status of their research centres. The same concern
has also been posed today by some researchers when the issue of international collaboration is
mentioned, namely the dilution of the EU's position as a centre of excellence in research.

Mr Alessandro Damiani (Head of Unit, European Commission DG RTD) says: "The assumption that
'engagement of the EU in international collaborative research activities may dilute the EU's claim for
"scientific and technological excellence" in transport research' is not well founded. It's a statement
that seems to be rooted in the belief that excellence is the exclusive prerogative of Europe: a vision of
the S&T world that may have been valid a century ago but certainly is not today. On the contrary, in
the growingly globalised multi-polar transport R&D stage, there is a lot of knowledge, excellence,

competences and capabilities outside of Europe that can complement the European ones and can be
tapped into with great benefit for Europe and its transport researchers and stakeholders, industry
and academia. That is why we welcome international participation in the Transport theme in
particular and in the whole Framework Programme, which is broadly open and accessible to non-
European partners, on a spontaneous bottom-up basis. It goes without saying that when a non-
European partner joins-in with European ones in a project consortium, that happens only if and when
the European partners find that presence useful for the successful conduct and outcome of their
project: hence there is always an added value to be gained for the European participants from this
'openness' ".

 Mr Damiani continues: "In addition to the general openness evoked above, we see international
cooperation as a potential added value to be encouraged selectively in carefully targeted cases (in
some areas, with some parts of the world), through ad-hoc measures, for the common benefit of
Europe and of the partner countries involved. There can be various drivers for targeting international
cooperation in Transport R&D, including access to knowledge, complementarity of know-how, need
to address common problems/global challenges, interoperability of technologies and systems,
international standardization issues, access to markets. Of course in the European Commission we
keep them in mind when we define objectives and topics in our Transport work programmes, and
more particularly when we identify the few priorities for targeted international cooperation; and we
make sure that we have the support of the European stakeholders and the Member States on the
choice of those priorities".

The European Union has sought to establish collaborative actions in Science & Technology with
various other regions of the world. For example, research collaboration between the European
Union and Australia was formalised in 1994 with the Science & Technology Agreement, the first ever
such agreement that the EU had concluded with a third country. The Agreement allows for European
and Australian researchers to take part in each other's programs primarily on a self funding basis. In
1997, the Agreement was further expanded to include all areas of research but little if anything has
been done on transportation research.

Similar actions have also taken place between the European Union and Japan, such as the EU-Japan
Cooperation Forum on ICT Research, 2008 and the EU-Japan "J-BILAT" agreement in 2010. Japan has
also taken actions to encourage international collaboration with the establishment of centres for the
promotion of Science around the world, such as, the Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST) with
offices in Paris, Washington, Singapore, Beijing and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
(JSPS) with offices in many EU and non EU countries.

Close and sustained collaborations in research between the US, EU and other parts of the world
have indeed been rare, but there are important exceptions.

Mr Godwin explains: "The US Department of Transportation is involved in the Joint Transport
Research Center (JTRC), a combined effort of the Organization for Economic and Community
Development (OECD) and the International Transport Forum (ITF). This collaboration has been in
place for many years, although the institutional arrangements on the European side have changed
over time. It is essentially a pooled fund research organization, where member countries contribute
staff time and resources and a committee made up of member countries determines which projects
are funded and how the work is done, via roundtable or working groups. Currently, an Associate

Administrator of the USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) is the co-
vice chair of that committee. The projects that result from these collaborations tend to produce
research reports on areas of policy and practice that are of interest to the many different nations
involved. TRB's long-standing collaboration with the OECD/JTRF's International Transportation
Research Documentation (ITRD) service regarding the pooling and distribution of bibliographic
records is another element of this ongoing, sustained relationship between USDOT and OECD ”.

“Other examples include TRB's two Strategic Highway Research Programs (SHRP) that US states and
USDOT have funded. Both SHRP programs have included international loaned staff, and both have
spawned parallel activities in other nations, such as long-term pavement performance experiments
and naturalistic driving experiments that are modelled on the SHRP research”.

“More recently, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has instituted research
collaboration with the Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL) that
includes a joint call for research proposals. In addition, the EU, RITA, and TRB, are collaborating on a
series of international symposia as a first step in building longer-term and more substantive
collaborations. There are also other examples of collaboration in areas of intelligent transportation
systems (ITS) and aviation research".

The European Commission's collaborative programmes do encourage the participation of non EU
countries with the inclusion of a country being optional.

Mr Damiani explains: "Identified 'targeted' topics only in rare cases contemplate the mandatory
participation of partners from one or more identified countries: it's the case of the so-called
'coordinated calls' (only four of them in FP7/Transport, all of them in aviation, with Russia, China and
Japan); in other 'targeted' cases the cooperation with non-European partners is evoked or
recommended but typically remains optional: this is what we do through the so-called 'synchronised'
calls (there was one such topic, for example, in the last call of FP7, agreed with the U.S. DoT, on road
infrastructure). Both these implementation modalities reflect some form of agreement with the
relevant authorities in the partner countries concerned; both are co-funded (each side paying for its
own participants); both normally generate distinct but closely complementary projects engaged in
addressing a common issue. And most importantly, in each case the partners enjoy the broadest
possible latitude in deciding the forms of cooperation, the distribution of tasks and the internal
arrangements for any sharing of results."

Mr Damiani concludes: "Whether it is the product of a targeted call or of the effect of the openness
of the Framework Programme, international cooperation has to live up to the high quality standards
of the programme. S&T excellence in fact is always the paramount selection criterion, and each
proposal is evaluated on the basis of its quality and pertinence, both as a whole and in all its
components".

The benefits of international collaboration in transportation research are well understood by all
stakeholders and there is support by institutions to create a framework for closer and more
sustained international research collaboration. However, a number of problems do exist.

A joint report by the TRB and the European Conference of Transportation Research Institutes (ECTRI)
(TRB-ECTRI 2009) lists several important barriers to research collaboration,

o   High Information Costs. Very often the formation of collaborative activities is stymied by a lack
    of information on collaborative opportunities and converging interests. Searching for potential
    collaborations at the international level may require levels of time and effort that are simply not
    available to researchers or organizations, especially when domestic partners and collaborators
    are readily available.
o   Transaction Hurdles. What may appear as simple to establish from afar may turn out to be very
    complicated from the standpoint of gaining the necessary approvals from the respective
    partners' governments to enter into a collaborative relationship.
o   Differences in Intellectual Property Rules. The sharing of intellectual property, publication rights,
    and credits can be a serious sticking point in partnerships. For instance, the United States
    operates under a first-to-file system, whereas European countries operate under a first-to-invent
    system.
o   Cultural Differences. As with any interactions that involve crossing cultural boundaries, partners
    should also recognize the cultural differences in communication protocols and patterns.
o   Capacity to "Go It Alone". Governments, especially the U.S. government, with a large scientific
    research community need powerful reasons to collaborate outside of their borders, since
    international collaboration is usually a more complex undertaking than national partnerships.
o   Institutional Inertia. Each collaborative activity that a government or organization enters into
    involves what economists call "opportunity costs." Because resources are always finite, when
    governments enter into one or more partnerships, the amount of time and capital that can be
    used in other collaborations is limited.
o   Differences in Institutional Cultures. Partnerships between institutions that possess different
    organizational cultures, missions and goals may be a challenge.

The HERMES project is therefore organising an International Workshop that aims to bring together
researchers from around the world to discuss all issues raised above and explore ways of facilitating
the creation of a framework for sustained international collaboration in transportation research.

 The workshop will take place on 25th & 26th of April 2013, in Paris. Attendance to the Workshop is
                                               free.

                          For further information: www.hermes-project.net