Mapping innovation in the European transport sector : An assessment of R&D efforts and priorities, institutional capacities, drivers and barriers to innovation

Abstract

The present document provides an overview of the innovation capacity of the European transport sectors. The analysis addresses transport-related innovation from three different angles. It identifies the drivers and barriers to innovation for the main transport sub-sectors; it assesses quantitative indicators through the detailed analysis of the main industrial R&D investors and public R&D priorities in transport; and it identifies the key actors for transport research and knowledge flows between them in order to detect shortcomings in the current institutional set-up of transport innovation. The analysis finds that despite the significant on-going research efforts in transport, largely driven by the automotive industry, the potential for systemic innovations that go beyond modal boundaries and leave the currently pre-dominant design are under-exploited due to prominent lock-in effects caused by infrastructure and the institutional set-up of the innovation systems