Building European capacity for Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility
The European Commission’s Strategic Dialogue on the Automotive Industry, launched in January 2025, reflects its strong support for the transformation of the European automotive industry in a fast-changing and competitive world. CCAM technologies offer a path for achieving a more sustainable, safe, efficient and competitive mobility ecosystem. CCAM is a key area of interest for CINEA, the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. Under Horizon 2020, EUR 300 million was awarded to research projects to advance connected and automated mobility. A further EUR 500 million is being delivered through the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, under its Cluster 5 on Climate, Energy and Mobility challenges, to support the development, demonstration and take-up of highly automated and connected driving systems. The topics on automated mobility are co-programmed with the CCAM partnership, a public-private partnership which aligns efforts of more than 200 stakeholders in academia, industry and policymaking to accelerate the development of CCAM technologies and services in Europe. This initiative aims to promote innovation, economic growth and environmental sustainability within Europe’s automative sector and deliver large-scale, real-world demonstrations by 2030. Main areas of research include vehicle technologies (such as hyper advanced perception, AI-based decision-making, and software development), validation methodologies, and socio-economic and environmental impact assessment, all working towards their integration and large-scale deployment within the transport system, providing users with cutting-edge and inclusive mobility solutions.
Driving progress
As an interconnected road system serving over 250 million drivers, Europe’s transition to CCAM requires a high degree of coordination. The 2016 Declaration of Amsterdam laid down the key principles for European cooperation in the development of CCAM, and established a structural dialogue between stakeholders, from both the private and public sectors. The most recent High-Level Dialogue on Connected and Automated Driving, held in Ghent in June 2024, underscored the need for continued collaboration between local, national and international players to harmonise research, standardisation and regulatory efforts, and reach the objective of large-scale deployment in Europe. This EU-level collaboration continues today. In May 2025, the European Conference on Connected and Automated Driving will host its 5th edition, bringing policymakers from the European Commission and Member States together with high-level representatives of industry, scientific institutes, transport authorities and operators to discuss the most recent technologies, policy developments, lessons learned and challenges in the area. This Pack highlights 15 CCAM projects that are delivering outstanding results, driving Europe forward to a safer and more sustainable transport system. The projects featured in this Pack cover a wide range of work undertaken to facilitate the shift towards CCAM. The AIthena, CONNECT, PoDIUM and SELFY projects all aim to build trust in automated systems through improved data security and transparency. FAME supports knowledge exchange in the CCAM domain through the development of common methodologies and tools, while models developed by i4Driving, EVENTS and SUNRISE will all help predict how automated systems perform in the real world. Work by CONDUCTOR and IN2CCAM will support traffic managers in the transition toward automated mobility networks, while Move2CCAM and SINFONICA examined the social impact of this shift. Finally, advanced technological solutions developed by the Hi-Drive, AWARD and SHOW projects are already being deployed in Europe and beyond.