ALICE has been appointed as a member of EURIAS following the European Commission call for applications launched in early 2026. (More information on EURIAS)
The European Commission Expert Group on European Union Research and Innovation for the Automotive Sector (EURIAS) advises the European Commission on future research and innovation (R&I) priorities for the automotive sector. It brings together around 60 organisations across the automotive ecosystem to contribute to the Strategic Research, Innovation and Deployment Agenda (SRIDA) for the Automotive Partnership Joint Undertaking (2028-2034).
EURIAS was established following the Industrial Action Plan for the European Automotive Sector and reflects the EU’s ambition to accelerate innovation in areas such as automation, zero-emission road freight transport, digitalisation, and circularity.
The transition to zero-emission, automated and digitally integrated freight transport depends not only on vehicle innovation, but on the logistics systems in which these vehicles operate.
Infrastructure readiness, energy availability, interoperability, data sharing and operational models are key enabling conditions for successful deployment. Without integrating these elements, automotive innovation risks being technologically advanced but difficult to implement in real freight environments.
EURIAS provides a key space where these logistics dimensions can be reflected in future EU research, innovation and deployment priorities, in particular the research framework programme (FP10) and the European Competitiveness Fund. Through its participation, ALICE contributes to ensuring that innovation is aligned with operational realities and can effectively reach the market ensuring not only increased competitiveness of the automotive sector, but also the full European Economy.
ALICE contributes the freight transport and logistics perspective to the development of the Strategic Research, Innovation and Deployment Agenda (SRIDA) for the period 2028-2034.
This includes supporting the integration of commercial vehicle innovations into logistics operations, addressing the deployment conditions for automation, and ensuring that infrastructure, energy systems and digital tools evolve in line with operational realities.
Through this role, ALICE contributes to shaping future research and innovation priorities and funding directions relevant to the logistics sector, helping to ensure that innovation can be effectively deployed in real-world freight transport environments.
ALICE advocates for integrating freight and logistics ecosystem as core enabler to achieve automotive sector competitiveness objectives. Flagship Initiatives under the European Competitiveness Fund focused on the first of a kind of new innovations deployment of automated, zero-emission and digitally interconnected freight commercial vehicle ecosystems.
This work builds on ALICE’s close collaboration with EUCAR and its long-standing engagement in initiatives such as CCAM, 2ZERO, ECAVA and Cross-border test beds on automation.
Participation in EURIAS provides ALICE members with early visibility on emerging EU priorities and research directions in the automotive and logistics interface.
It also supports better alignment between vehicle innovation and logistics operations, helping ensure that future developments reflect real use cases and operational constraints.
In addition, EURIAS is expected to contribute to the preparation of future large-scale initiatives and deployment actions, creating opportunities for collaboration across the automotive and logistics value chain.
ALICE is preparing a briefing note outlining logistics and supply chain research and innovation priorities relevant to the automotive ecosystem. This will support its contributions to the Expert Group discussions and the development of the Strategic Research, Innovation and Deployment Agenda for 2028-2034.
In parallel, ALICE will advocate for the preparation of a Flagship Initiative under the European Competitiveness Fund focused on the deployment of automated, zero-emission and digitally integrated commercial vehicle ecosystems.
The initiative addresses key aspects such as integration with road logistics operations, infrastructure and energy readiness, data sharing and large-scale deployment.
ALICE invites members active in road freight transport, automation, zero-emission technologies, infrastructure and digitalisation to contribute their expertise to this work.
Organisations interested in engaging with ALICE activities in this area are welcome to contact the Secretariat at info@etp-logistics.eu.