This action should research how best to address the global value chain identifying the supply chain needs for the railway system of the future, address the supply constraints and risk of supply availabilities for delivery of the EU rail innovations over time and the strategic options to ensure resilient solutions and autonomy within Europe.

If the global trade and the digitalisation have enabled EU companies to be competitive and produce taking advantage of a global supply chain, it has also showed its limitation in operating under a lock-down situation which affected factories and oversees transportation channels, resulting in scarcity of materials and components and therefore production delays and/or unforeseen costs. This affected the European rail industry as well, but more in particular the SMEs that, if on one side shows great ability to be agile, on the other side they may not have the means to sustain for a long period an unknown supply situation or significantly increased costs

The research should involve all relevant actors and gather expertise leveraging from the knowledge of the rail supply industry, in particular SMEs and start-ups, confronted to possible supply shortages.

Ιn the scope of rail innovations to:

• increasing access to supply chain information and possibilities within Europe;
• increasing resilience of the EU rail products in the global supply chain, considering as well the effect of climate changes;
• provision of confidence, in particular for SMEs, on the supply needs (material, components, etc.) for future rail innovations and their availabilities;
• foster global competitiveness of EU companies.