“ Most of the participants were engineers and had little, if any, experience on use and exploitation strategies. With the Horizon Results Booster we wanted to acquire some. Also, we aimed to join forces with other similar projects. ”
Pavement may seem invisible sometimes, but it is a major element of our landscape. Even if we pay little to no attention to it, about 40% of the urban areas are covered by pavement. This makes it the most expensive public property on which people travel every day. It is becoming more and more important that our walkable spaces are user friendly for everybody, including people with disabilities, elders, and children.
A new Europe of smart, safer, and accessible roads is possible, and this is what the SAFERUP! team has been striving for. The 4-year research initiative supported multidisciplinary projects and trained talented researchers in fields like smart, recycled and durable paving materials, accessibility and protection, study of user behaviour, tempered and acoustic pavements, energy harvesting and self-sensing technologies and more.
A key focus of the project was career planning, entrepreneurship and communication skills development of the young researchers involved.
“SAFERUP! aimed to provide the European community with innovative solutions that will form the urban paved environment of the future. Footpaths, bike lanes, roads, intersections, squares and all other walkable surfaces that we all use every day will be designed, constructed and managed to meet context-sensitive criteria including not only safety, mobility and costs (construction and maintenance), but also sustainability, environmental impacts, accessibility, aesthetics, circular economy and local economy preservation,” said Cesare Sangiorgi, supervisor of the project and Associate Professor at University of Bologna.
The SAFERUP! team has worked on 15 cross-sectorial projects that could have a strong impact on the road infrastructures, their safety and accessibility, ultimately leading to more sustainable and people-friendly cities.
But how can researchers working on projects like this make sure that their findings can be successfully transferred to relevant stakeholders and decision-makers? How can they maximize research exploitation and multiply impact?
“Most of the participants were engineers and had little, if any, experience on use and exploitation strategies. With the Horizon Results Booster we wanted to acquire some. Also, we aimed to join forces with other similar projects,” Cesare explained.
His team benefited from the Portfolio Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy (PDES) service of Horizon Results Booster. The service was divided into three modules: creation of R&I results portfolio, portfolio dissemination plan design, and improving the exploitation strategy. These activities resulted in a set of suggested actions to maximize impact and a joint event to showcase SAFERUP! at UCL, in London.
One of the main achievements of SAFERUP! was having almost all the researchers transitioning to new positions either in the same hosting institution of their PhD, in connected ones or in companies looking for their specific expertise.
On the research side, many of the studies conducted reached high levels of maturity and made important advancements in the field. One of them is on impact-absorbing pavements, made at University of Bologna by Dr. Christina Makoundou, who is now continuing her work at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden.
ProtectPav (Protective Pavement for Vulnerable Road Users) is a combination of aggregates, recycled rubber and a binder. It makes the most out of the rubber elasticity to absorb impact, avoiding particle lose and considering the most eco-friendly production process for the industry and the environment.
The main goal was to create a less harmful pavement for vulnerable users in urban areas. On top of that, ProtectPav is an environmental-friendly solution: more than 50% of its volume comes from recycled rubber from end-of-life tyres and it uses a heat-free production process. Thanks to her work, Christina was awarded with a prestigious 1st Prize for the TRA Visions 2022 in Lisbon.
“The final objective is to make a pavement with many added values, durable, low cost and not hazardous for users and the environment, the road of innovation to more liveable and safe cities, a solution with less pollution,” Christina Makoundou explains.
Video: PROTECTVU - Updates by Christina Makoundou
Other studies conducted within SAFERUP! explored how pavement could be used to capture solar heat, how waste materials such as cigarette filters can be used as stabilising fibres in producing asphalts, or how portable tools fixed on vehicles could collect data to predict environmental conditions that are potentially risky for the population.
Do you want to take your research further? Apply now for Horizon Results Booster free support services!
Learn more on the SAFERUP! website
Project funding: H2020, Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network (MSCA)
“ Horizon Results Booster services were very helpful. It was useful to understand how exploitation could go beyond direct commercialisation. Through these seminars, I realised that in fact it could be applied to many fields. ”
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“ Horizon Results Booster was very helpful for the support of the project exploitation in this particular phase of consolidation. DENiM received good feedback regarding the current development level, in particular for the Key Exploitable Result characterization and the first business model produced by R2M Solution. At the same time the booster service provides us a helpful tool to investigate missing points. ”
“ HRB's support has been valuable in providing strategic guidance and facilitating initial steps in our journey. While their assistance has primarily focused on strategic input, we appreciate their contributions in shaping our early direction ”