SUP&R ITN outreach magazine SUP&R ITN features FIRM

HORIZONTAL/DISSEMINATION SUP&R ITN OFFERS EARLY RESEARCHER TRAINING IN SUSTAINABLE PAVEMENTS & RAILwAYS The FP7-funded Sustainable Pavements & Railways Initial Training Network (SUP&R ITN), which started at the beginning of October 2013, aims to form a new generation of multi-disciplinary European researchers and professionals capable of conceiving, planning and executing sustainable road and railway infrastructures. This is through a consortium of universities, research centres and companies/industries from five countries (UK, Italy, France, Ireland and Spain). The Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre (NTEC) at the University of Nottingham is coordinating this four-year People - Marie Curie Actions project and will lead the shaping of the training of all the recruited researchers. SUP&R ITN offers a training-throughresearch programme to selected young researchers across Europe. The project includes a high-level four-year training programme which will be international and multi-sectoral. To achieve the overall research and training objectives, the SUP&R ITN has implemented six Work Packages (WPs). NTEC will lead the shaping of the training programme (WP4), be in charge of the management of the SUP&R ITN (WP5) as well as the dissemination and outreach activities of the Consortium (WP6). Each hosting institution will contribute to the training-through-research of the researcher through projects that will be delivered within three scientific research work packages (WP1-WP3) The training will be local and networkwide and will consist of basic and advanced scientific courses together with complementary skills training courses, workshops, technical visits, research periods abroad, summer schools, conferences and a final symposium. Each course will be coordinated by the Consortium and will be held at the premises of the different partners. SUP&R ITN will train the researchers/professionals to incorporate sustainability concepts already at the design stage of road and railway infrastructure technologies. SUP&R ITN will drive the researchers on their pathway by closely investigating promising pavements and railway technologies with practical methods, models and tools for estimating their sustainability. This will improve the sustainability of road and rail systems throughout their lifecycle through systematic integration of sustainability metrics at an early stage in the product design. The SUP&R ITN programme will achieve these results by developing inter-linked research projects aiming at: Developing new sustainability technologies and materials for use in road pavements and railway transport infrastructure Providing advanced characterisation of recycled and reused materials generated from road and railway infrastructure and/or other production processes for use in road and railway infrastructure. for immediate uptake by industrial stakeholders working in the area of transport infrastructure. Developing and refining estimation tools so that industry can assess where it currently stands in key sustainability indicators and determine how much it can improve using low-energy and more recycled materials. The industry partners cover the whole stakeholder chain of road pavements and railways from transport infrastructure managers, engineering designers, contractors and manufacturers. The Consortium is complemented by 19 Associate partners (see “Partners” on superitn.eu), including FEHRL for dissemination, which range from research and training bodies, professional European Associations, experts in sustainability and online training of sustainability. FULL PARTNERS Developing detailed material modelling and design approaches For more information, go to superitn.eu, see SUP&R ITN on Facebook or contact Davide Lo Presti at [email protected] 19 I