Steering Change
Two Horizon Europe initiatives are steering Europe’s road transport toward sustainability. STREnGth_M sets the direction—aligning research and expertise—while LeMesurier tracks the real-world impact of the 2Zero Partnership through data-driven insight. Together, they form a powerful alliance, keeping Europe firmly in the driver’s seat of sustainable mobility innovation and ensuring research translates into real progress on the road.
Europe is at a pivotal moment in the journey towards climate-neutral, smarter, and more sustainable mobility. At the heart of this transformation, innovative research acts as a lifeline, with two Horizon Europe projects—STREnGth_M and LeMesurier—playing a central role in shaping the future of road transport.
Running from February 2023 to February 2026, STREnGth_M lays the strategic foundations, identifying research priorities, updating agendas, and fostering collaboration across Europe and beyond. Complementing this and running from January 2024 to December 2025, LeMesurier considers how ambition turns into measurable impact, monitoring the 2Zero Partnership’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), assessing progress and how bold plans could deliver real results.
Strengthening research, laying the foundations
STREnGth_M has supported the creation of the Road Transport Vision 2050 which was adopted by ERTRAC, STREnGth_M
In the pursuit of climate neutrality and smarter urban mobility, the STREnGth_M project has emerged as a crucial strategic initiative, coordinating and supporting Europe’s efforts in road transport research. Acting as a Coordinated Support Action (CSA) for the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC), the project plays a key role in shaping the future of sustainable transport.
STREnGth_M is a catalyst for collaboration, policy alignment, and knowledge exchange across Europe and beyond. Bringing together 23 partners from ten countries, it unites a diverse network of stakeholders committed to transforming road transport into a sustainable, inclusive, and globally connected system.
At its heart, the project seeks to identify future research priorities, update Strategic Research Agendas (SRAs), and coordinate the development of roadmaps for road transport research. It fosters ongoing dialogue among Horizon Europe partnerships, national programmes, and international platforms, ensuring that collective efforts move in the same direction.
Looking outward, STREnGth_M maintains a global perspective. It monitors the progress of electric mobility worldwide and assesses the potential of innovative transport solutions in emerging markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This international outlook is essential for strengthening cooperation, overcoming barriers to the deployment of research results, and aligning global ambitions for cleaner mobility.
Education and training also sit at the core of the project’s mission. STREnGth_M recognises that the transition to sustainable mobility depends on skilled professionals and inclusive frameworks. Through workshops, conferences, and dissemination activities, it highlights how road transport research contributes to the European Green Deal and the Paris Agreement, reinforcing the sector’s vital role in achieving climate objectives.
As cities face mounting environmental and social challenges, STREnGth_M offers a forward-looking blueprint for collaborative road transport research. It is a project that not only drives innovation but ensures its benefits reach the markets, streets, communities, and citizens who stand to gain most from technological progress.
Measuring impact, accelerating change
LeMesurier is generating brief
reports related to each of the forty or so KPIs of 2ZERO, LeMesurier
The ‘Towards Zero Emission Road Transport’ Partnership, or 2Zero Partnership, is a European initiative funded by Horizon Europe to accelerate the transition to a climate-neutral road transport system. Launched in 2021, it brings together a wide range of stakeholders—including industry, research centres, and public bodies—to develop and deploy zero-emission vehicle technologies, improve air quality and urban mobility, and secure Europe’s future leadership in this sector. Building on the success of previous automotive partnerships, it operates with a clear set of objectives, supported by defined measures of success and KPIs.
The 2Zero Partnership’s KPIs are diverse, covering a three-layer structure of objectives—general, specific, and operational—as outlined in its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The LeMesurier project, a CSA led by a consortium of 14 partners, is establishing a common framework to monitor these KPIs, including their sources, methodologies, and reporting formats.
It generates KPI values and projections for the coming decade based on the ongoing projects within the Partnership and evaluates the overall impact of the portfolio. This CSA also identifies and quantifies interactions, impacts, and the effectiveness of the Partnership within the road transport sector, providing recommendations for the further development and analysis of measurement and evaluation methods.
Additionally, LeMesurier disseminates and communicates its findings to a wide range of stakeholders—across the road transport sector, EU Member States, and the general public—through various media and events.
Its consortium represents multiple sectors of Europe’s road transport community. Its work is guided by a strong Advisory Board, bringing together vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs), operators, infrastructure providers, technology partnerships, joint undertakings, and other representative organisations from across Europe.
To date, LeMesurier has tracked over forty KPIs from the ongoing activities of the first thirty or so 2Zero projects. Early indications are positive, showing that the Partnership is on course to achieve the majority of its objectives. Moreover, the methods developed by LeMesurier can be adopted directly by the Partnership, enabling consistent and timely assessment of 2ZERO’s achievements throughout the second half of its mandate.
Driving change... Together
STREnGth_M and LeMesurier are two sides of the same coin when it comes to advancing Europe’s road transport research, in particular the activities of Horizon Europe Technology Platforms and Partnerships. Findings from one project often flow directly into the other—for instance, STREnGth_M’s work supporting ERTRAC helps shape the analytical methods LeMesurier uses to tackle the most complex 2Zero KPIs.
Looking ahead, ERTRAC’s future research planning, especially in urban mobility and undertaken as part of STREnGth_M, could spark new calls within the 2Zero Partnership work programme portfolio, with LeMesurier providing the tools to measure their impact.
These two projects form a tightly connected, coordinated research ecosystem, driving Europe’s road transport innovation from strategy to tangible, real-world impact. While the road ahead may present challenges, together they are at the wheel, navigating the complexities that comes with change and charting a clear course for the future of the sector. Their collaboration shows how coordinated research, shared expertise, and strategic vision can turn ambitious goals into meaningful progress—a powerful reminder that, when it comes to sustainable mobility, there is also strength in numbers.
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About the authors:
Verena Wagenhofer, Project Coordinator, AVL List GmbH. Wagenhofer is a Project Coordinator and Research Funding Expert at AVL, based in Graz, Austria. She coordinates and supports numerous strategic initiatives and EU-funded projects in road transport research. With a strong background in innovation management, project management, and stakeholder engagement, she helps facilitate collaboration across industry, academia, and policy to advance sustainable mobility.
Simon Edwards, Director, Innovation, Ricardo GmbH. Edwards is responsible for the research and collaboration portfolio of Ricardo around the world. With over 40 years of experience in the automotive industry, he has worked for OEM, Tier 1 suppliers, and RTO. He is the technical coordinator for the LeMesurier project and serves as Vice-Chairman of ERTRAC, Chairman of the RTR Conference, and is a past chairman of EARPA.
Tina Vander Molen, Shutterstock