Mr Boris Lapidus, IRRB Chairman, met Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General at UIC HQ on 27 October 2016. The meeting focused on the future development of IRRB’s work over a three-year timeframe.
It was stated that after six years of actions conducted by the body chaired by Mr Lapidus on research and innovation around the world we need to take further steps. The IRRB is the perfect place to work to develop an interface between the modes of transport and digitalisation. Thanks to powerful tools such as the UIC Research & Innovation Portal (railway-research@uic.org) we can disseminate more information around the world and share project results in this area. It was also proposed to create a “Digital Corner” within the Portal space which will be operational before the next General Assembly. The visibility and dissemination will be greater thanks to our cooperation with RSSB (SPARK portal) and ACRI database as well as with Czech R&D register called WORC.
The next UIC workshop on rail digitalisation focusing on: “Digital Innovations and Internet of Things” is to be held in Beijing in 2017 – and will also be attended by IRRB representatives.
The 3rd edition of the UIC Innovation Awards will be held during statutory meetings in St. Petersburg. Our intensions are to encourage young researchers to invent and improve the railway systems. The UIC is opening IRRB membership up to universities as the academic world wishes to cooperate. The synergy between railway companies, research institutes as well as the universities will pay back for the sector in the future.
During the meeting, the Chairman of the IRRB reported to the UIC General Director the results of an evaluation of 70 submitted R&I projects in accordance with the Innovation Awards 2016 call rules. The six category winners will be informed and invited to St. Petersburg on 1 December as well as one young researcher awarded specially, and one live achievement award will be handed out during the official ceremony.
At the General Assembly meeting in Russia, Mr Lapidus will present a report of IRRB’s work and its future targets and actions for 2017-19, the UIC GA will also renew the mandates of the IRRB chairpersons.
