LEADER 2030 project (acronym of “Learnings for European Autonomy to Deliver Europe’s Rail in 2030”) is funded under the Europe’s Rail JU programme, call “European value chains for rail supply” (Horizon-ER-JU-2022-ExpIR-06).
LEADER 2030 objectives are:
(1) Understanding:
(a) what has already proven to be vulnerable in the EU industrial ecosystems in general (given cross-sectorial problems), and in the EU Rail supply chain (OEMs and 1-3 Tiers) and Raw materials supply chain in detail;
(b) what the ERJU-driven innovations for 2030 will look like in terms of components and raw materials (detail from OEMs to 1-3 Tiers level);
(c) what the European supply capacity of such components and raw materials will look like;
(d) what elements will impact on such supply capacity (enablers, obstacles);
(e) how enablers can be further boosted and how obstacles can be fixed/mitigated to foster autonomy and resilience;
(f) what will go out from the Rail supply chain in terms of demand in 2030, and (i) if this can be used to free-up components and raw materials useful to the new innovations (ii) how to support the reconversion (total/partial) of affected companies;
(g) how to get the Rail supply industry – with specific attention to SMEs and start-ups – ready for 2030 demand;
(2) Proposing/Recommending policy-level actions and industrial-level actions as result of all the intelligence analysis made in the project.
The ultimate goal of the project is in fact to assess and increase the European Rail Supply Industry capacity to deliver the European vision of a radically transformed railway system in 2030, and thanks to this, to remain global leader.
To achieve this, LEADER 2030 has developed a very holistic approach and methodology thanks to a very strong and complementary partnership joining all the necessary competences from the Rail, Raw Materials and Innovation sectors, and strategically open to synergies with other relevant organisations in Europe that already support the project with their LoS (10).
The key call’s request to ensure coverage of the Rail Supply SMEs and start-up is ensured by the Coordinator, as European Metacluster of the Rail Supply Chain with 2.000 companies, of which >1.500 SMEs.
Keywords: Railway, Supply chain management, Industrial ecosystems, Clusters, Value chain, SMEs, Autonomy, Supplies disruption, Resilience, Global competitiveness, Geopolitics, Risk mitigation, Industrial alliances, Circular economy
