SAFER Annual report 2020 summarizes this year’s live-saving road safety research
SAFER's annual report for the fifteenth operational year has now been launched. The report is a summary of the activities and research carried out within the research center between January 1st and December 31st 2020.
“This year has been special in many different ways but activities at SAFER has been ongoing in a very positive way. Going online has really inspired us and we have proven that is possible to conduct collaboration without meeting physically”, says Magnus Granström, SAFER’s director.
The project portfolio has grown and been enriched by another 38 projects. In total, 70 vehicle and traffic safety projects have been ongoing. We have also grown in other ways; four new partners joined SAFER during the year and the number of researchers involved in the network has increased by almost 100 people, from around 350 to close to 450 people. SAFER’s research has generated close to 80 publications and three SAFER doctors. 38 partners from the Swedish automotive industry, academia and authorities have cooperated to make a centre of excellence within the field of vehicle and traffic safety.
UN resolution with global road safety targets
One of 2020’s highlights was the global UN-conference on road safety, which was held in Stockholm in February. In addition to the exchange of knowledge and experience, the conference resulted in the Stockholm Declaration, a strategic agenda on how to improve road safety globally. The Stockholm Declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to a UN resolution in August, a major step for improved road safety all around the globe and also a great opportunity for us in the research community.
Project creation in focus
SAFER has continued to be a strong speaking partner in the processes shaping the upcoming research programmes in Sweden and the EU. For instance, in the formation of the CCAM (Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility) partnership in Europe, several SAFER partners have been instrumental in safeguarding the road safety aspects in the strategic research and innovation agenda. The result of this work is now evident in the draft work programme for Horizon Europe with several calls based on this input.
Sharing knowledge and arranging project creation workshops online have worked fine during the pandemic and SAFER have conducted close to 80 knowledge sharing events; seminars, SAFER updates, workshops and even project brokerage events. Having said that, we are of course looking very much forward to meeting you all in person again when possible. Also, the SAFER pre-studies, our tool to stimulate multidisciplinary research, has started off successfully. In 2020, we had three calls open and received 15 applications, of which 7 were funded. The project ideas that were submitted are what we strive for – multidisciplinary projects with several partners, exploring a new area with the potential to become a larger project as a next step.
Our focus on knowledge building has also continued through new competence networks that we have started up; Perception, sensing and communication as well as Functional safety and Structures and materials, which have been without leaders for some time. Our connected research resources have also been developed further; Revere, our vehicle lab for active safety and autonomous driving, celebrated its five year anniversary in November. The opportunity for researchers to be offered a steppingstone with cutting-edge expertise between theoretical models or simulators and full-scale tests has proven to be extremely important for efficient and
SAFER in a larger ecosystem
Another important area that we jointly have decided to develop further in SAFER Stage 5 is the use of our ecosystem around SAFER and we have initiated two new valuable collaborations; with Cykelcentrum at VTI and K2 – the center for public transport in Lund. We will collaborate, for example, by sharing knowledge between us, such as publications and other research results. We also aim to arrange various knowledge-building activities, gather around common research questions to create projects but also to inspire each other to think more broadly.
AI – a new tool for improved road safety research
At SAFER, we see a great potential to take advantage of AI as a tool to improve our road safety research. During the year, we have carried out a number of activities with the aim of getting closer to an understanding of how we efficiently can use AI in our research to add value to our partners. As a result of the workshops conducted three prioritized areas have been identified that we now would like to explore further and create opportunities for the partners to turn these areas into concrete projects and solutions. Several funding opportunities have been identified and we have a strong engagement and interest from the partners to continue this work. We have also found that the availability and quality of data is crucial to be successful. SAFER has a great potential and a unique edge to be able to meet this need since useful data is already available within the network. This opportunity will be explored further in 2021.
Please find our complete annual report for 2020 below.
