EURNEX Association - a legal Entity
On October 30, 2007 the European rail research was set up on a new quality. EURNEX, the EUropean rail Research Network of Excellence, as an association according to the German law (e. V. = "eingetragener Verein") has been founded at the TSB-FAV premises in Berlin. In a smooth transformation process the founding Assembly of Members unanimously elected Prof. Manuel Pereira of IST Lisbon as Chairman of the EURNEX Council, Dr. El Miloudi El Koursi of IFSTTAR Lille as Vice-Chairman and Assistant Prof. Wolfgang H. Steinicke as Secretary General of EURNEX.
The EURNEX Network of Excellence comprises of some 47 scientific institutes in the area of transport with particular expertise in rail research all over Europe. As direct docking points to the research customers, the international associations UIC, UNIFE and UITP were also members of EURNEX and integrated in the Advisory Board.
Started in January 2004 with support from the European Commission, EURNEX pursues the main targets
- To integrate the fragmented rail research landscape in Europe
- To contribute to a more competitive future European rail system by providing excellent research and education
- To achieve sustainability for the NoE through a sound business model, providing durable added value for its
members and the rail system stakeholders.
With EURNEX, the integration of the excellent European rail researchers has been achieved and EURNEX becomes more and
more visible in the top rail research on international level. This includes as well the launch and the further
development of EURNEX Scientific Poles of Excellence. With the Poles - thoroughly defined by matching of rail
sector driven top-down and scientists based bottom-up process - the involved and committed EURNEX
scientists profit by
- Internationalisation through establishing new and trusting partnerships with colleagues from other countries,
thus complementing the own capabilities to improve the "individual scientific competitiveness",
- Improving the knowledge about the specific challenges and future issues of the rail system in other countries =>
important contribution to enhance the understanding of the European dimension for the future rail system,
- Learning more and discussing about the future issues and the project approaches to cope with these challenges
through the direct dialogue with industry's and operator's representatives in the Poles,
- Initiating and developing R&D projects on European scale within in the Poles and with cross-pole multidisciplinary
cooperation (already done with FP 7 1st call, for instant).
Under the EURNEX umbrella a set of decentralised corporate services have been defined and further developed. These corporate services are dedicated to provide added value to the members of EURNEX, but also for the European rail sector as a whole. The corporate services are important to improve the position, standing and integrated competence of the EURNEX scientific community to be world class player as well as being visible to the industrial and political decision makers by integrating the European research area for the rail system. Therefore, the specified corporate services
- EURNEX EURail, the virtual rail university - first step: post graduate training, incl. short training courses
- Rail knowledge library within the EURNEX KMS (knowledge management system) to preserve and to improve the integrated knowledge on the rail system for all stakeholders
- Neutral support for harmonised product qualification methods, railway testing and simulation; i.e. to support the European Rail Agency (ERA)
- Gender equality promoting activities to skill women for leading positions in rail research; launch of the mentor-trainee programme
- EURNEX management, business and acquisition support by secretary general; definition, precision and prioritisation of service items by the network members
represent an essential part of EURNEX' sustainability.