SINFONICA team in Reggio Emilia

The SINFONICA project, which started in September 2022, was born under the Horizon Europe Programme with the aim of answering to the part B of call of HE Call HORIZON-CL5-2021-D6-01-05:  Analysis of socio-economic and environmental impacts and assessment of societal, citizen and user aspects for needs based CCAM solutions (CCAM Partnership).

The vision of SINFONICA – Social INnovation to FOster iNclusIve cooperative, Connected and Automated mobility – is to develop functional, efficient, and innovative strategies, methods and tools to engage CCAM users, providers and other stakeholders (i.e. citizens, including vulnerable user groups, transport operators, public administrations, service providers, researchers, vehicle and technology suppliers) to collect, understand and structure in a manageable and exploitable way their needs, desires, and concerns related to CCAM. SINFONICA will use this knowledge to co-create final decision support tools for designers and decision makers with the scope to enhance its seamless and sustainable deployment, to be inclusive and equitable for all citizens.

On 6 and 7 March 2023, the meeting of the SINFONICA Steering Committee took place in Reggio Emilia, Italy. This constituted an important meeting opportunity between the different realities collaborating for the realization of the project, allowing to address the issues concerning the development of innovative solutions in the CCAM field capable of meeting the needs of citizens and, among potential users, the needs of the most vulnerable categories.

The meeting took place in the ancient Episcopal Seminary in Viale Timavo, now renovated and transformed into a new building for the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The event started in the early afternoon on Monday, 6 ^th of March 2023 with the official welcoming made by the meeting Convener, Prof. Mauro Dell’Amico (ICOOR – Unimore).

The Steering Committee event encouraged a participatory approach by all group members; indeed, each discussion item has been organised as an interactive workshop pushing open conversations among the attendees. The scope was to refine the current plan and the following steps to take in the next phases of the SINFONICA project ensuring the definition of a clear action for everyone involved.

During the meeting, many steps forward were taken in defining the Groups of  Interest that will be involved in the project deployment in Trikala, Hamburg, Noord-Brabant province, and West Midlands metropolitan area. These progresses concerned the definition of the segments of society that will form the Groups of Interest, which will be involved during the implementation phase of the “knowledge maps”, an innovative tool able to exploit the SINFONICA knowledge by providing practical guidelines and long-term recommendations to researchers, public bodies, and policy makers alike.

Among the various categories of stakeholders, particular attention was paid to defining the groups of potential users belonging to the most vulnerable categories, i.e., those categories of people who, for various reasons, may experience discomfort in their daily mobility and towards whom it is necessary to direct efforts to apply inclusive solutions that overcome existing gaps.

The first face-to.face Steering Committee of SINFONICA was a successful event where all partners finally met in person and had the chance to forge strong professional bonds which are going to be important not only in the further development of the project, but also in strengthening the ties between European partners and research centres.

SINFONICA will run until August 2025 and until then, there is going to be yet a lot of activities to be performed and meetings to be held, but, as they say, a good beginning bodes well.

If you want to find more information about SINFONICA, visit the new website: https://sinfonica.eu