Research goals, scope and implementation
Several transport science related initiatives are currently ongoing at KTH and outside. This reflects quite accurately the societal relevance of the field as well as emphasizes the challenges that lay before us. The scientific community can only have a significant impact on society if we indeed create sufficient momentum and volume to make a difference. KTH is well on its way to create a very strong multi-disciplinary network of entities that could make it a driving force to solve the societal challenges related to our future transport needs. Nevertheless, it is very important for the Road2Science center to have a clearly defined identity within this network. In Figure 2, an overview is given of the products and services that Road2Science will develop and the challenges is aims to tackle.
As indicated in the figure, enhancing the mobility and environmental friendliness of the infrastructure industry are identified as the two main challenges in infrastructure engineering that will be placed focus on by Road2Science. It will do so by developing new materials, tools and systems in pioneering research projects but also by training a new generation of talents that will become leaders in our future society to solve the transportation challenges.
Road2Science will assist in the career development of its members by making important connections between its partners and identifying and providing focused training workshops. Additionally, the partners and friends of Road2Science will receive support to organize their own training sessions, which can be disseminated via the center. As such Road2Science will become a Center for the community at large to turn to with their transport engineering questions. Within Road2Science, special focus will be placed on diversity of its students, researchers and active members. By creating multi-disciplinary solutions and cross-disciplinary paths that transcend departmental, institutional, industrial and governmental barriers, Road2Science hopes to become a role model for putting the knowledge triangle to practice.
And via these strategic plans, Road2Science hopes to become an educational and research resource for KTH and Sweden in the field of highway and railway engineering with a focus on attracting national and international research talent.
