This document represents the condensed summary of the key results of the “LEADER 2030-Learnings for European Autonomy to Deliver Europe’s Rail in 2030” project. Run from July 2023 to March 2026, the project had for main objective to conduct research activities aiming at providing answer to the following key question: “will there be enough raw materials and components to bring to the market in 2030 all the Railway innovations Europe’s Rail, the European programme for Rail research and innovation, is delivering?” The following partnership with complementary skills tried to answer this challenging question: § ERCI-European Railway Clusters Initiative (Belgium): Europe’s only Railway meta-cluster network, uniting 18 Rail innovation clusters operating on 17 European countries, to connect SMEs, large companies and research organisations and strengthen the competitiveness of the European Rail industry. It acts as a B2B and innovation matchmaking platform, bringing customers and suppliers together, supporting cross-border cooperation § Railenium (France): French government-certified Technological Research Institute (IRT) for Rail, bringing together industry and academia to develop, validate and test breakthrough Railway technologies and improve the competitiveness of the Rail sector. It acts as a “common house” for partners across the Rail ecosystem, running R cross-references between these sectors and the Railway sector, where relevant; summary of take-aways/inspirations considered more relevant for the prosecution of the project D1.3 – Supplies alerts for the future (developed by ERCI-European Railway Clusters Initiative), detailing about the type of Railway supplies affected by disruptions, listing which end products are suffering from different types of supply difficulties D2.1 – Map of Railway needs in 2030 (developed by Railenium), comprehensively mapping Europe’s Rail innovations expected by 2030, identifying necessary technologies, raw materials, and supply chain requirements across various tiers (OEM, Tier 1, 2, 3), as well as highlighting subsystems and components that will become obsolete or significantly reduced due to technological advancements, signaling key areas of industry transformation D3.1 – Forecast for autonomy, bottlenecks and gaps for Europe’s Rail 2030 raw material supply (developed by GKZ-Geokompetenzzentrum Freiberg), analysing past crises causing raw material supply distortions and availability constraints; assessing disruptions linked to energy politics and shortages, including risks from production closures or outsourcing; reviewing sourcing strategies of the most affected EU Member States, with a focus on countries with strong Rail economies; mapping the availability, provenance and supply chains of key raw materials, including European and overseas sourcing options; examining EU and global regulatory frameworks affecting access and economically viable domestic sourcing; addressing geopolitical factors and sustainable sourcing schemes to support a resilient Rail supply chain up to 2030 D4.1 – Intelligence analysis and recommendations to deliver Europe’s Rail 2030 (version for the Stakeholders Public Consultation) (developed by ERCI and based on the previous deliverables), summarising research data to create awareness and knowledge in view of the public consultation run from January to February 2026 on the recommendations identified as project results The results of the Public Consultation and of the Validation rounds on D4.1 recommendations plus, other systematised data gathered on a continuous basis during the project implementation from multiple sources (desk analysis, field visits, specialistic workshops and online meetings, participation in conferences) and used to complement, strengthen and validate the project results.
Bocci et al. (Wed,) studied this question.