1 Group or individual entries are eligible for all pillars. Entries may be submitted by any individual or team that consists of up to a maximum of 7 participants.
2 Only one entry will be accepted per person/team and all entries must fall into one of the outlined pillars. Participants cannot submit the same abstract/ video under different pillars/transport modes.
3 The registration period will be open until 30/06/2019 31/10/2019 and the young researchers are invited to submit an abstract of their idea, under one of the TRA 2020 Conference Topics.
4 The deadline for comprehensive project submission is 31/10/2019 at Mid-Night Central European Time (31/10/2019 23:59 CET). Any entries beyond this time will not be accepted, unless an extension is granted.
5 The abstracts must be 220-250 words. It may contain up to 3 diagrams, high quality images or figures as appropriate. Participants need to submit at least two high resolution images or diagrams. The minimum resolution should be 1920x1080 pixels at 72 dpi (monitor resolution).
6 All submitted entries will automatically give their permission for their abstract to go public on the project website and on the TRA VISIONS contest book. It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that such publication does not breach the copyright of others.
7 All submissions need to include a report based on the Final Project Template (available for download from the TRA VISIONS website), a short presentation and a project poster accompanied by an optional short video (about 1 minute). The submission of a video is mandatory for all shortlisted ideas (top 10 ideas per mode). The shortlisted students will be notified well in advance in order to develop the short videos.
8 All submitted entries need to be in understandable, academic English, of general European interest and need to ensure a clear understanding of the idea. We will accept video entries in any language; however, foreign language videos must include English subtitles.
9 All abstracts and videos must be the work of the young researchers. Participants may submit work already published, provided it is their own work and its publication to the TRA VISIONS website does not breach the copyright of others.
10 The maximum allowable number of final submissions is 100 per mode. This limitation works on a first come first serve basis.
11 No “copyright” infringing content can be included.
12 Only entries submitted within the online submission section of the TRA VISIONS website will be accepted.
13 The competition is open to young researchers registered in a College, University or Technical Institute from across the European Union, EU Candidate Countries, Potential EU Candidate Countries and European Economic Area1. A young researcher is defined herein as University and Technical Institute student pursuing (or recently completed) a BSc, MSc, PhD or comparable degrees. Those who graduated earlier than the 1st of January 2018 are not eligible to apply.
14 Winners will be acknowledged on both the TRA VISIONS and the TRA 2020 websites and may be acknowledged elsewhere.
15 All finalists (one nominee/team representative per winning team) will receive a contribution towards their accommodation and travel expenses to the TRA 2020 Conference in Helsinki, Finland. The contribution is dependent on the point of origin within Europe which could be the young researchers’ normal place of study or normal place of residence. It is a condition of this award that the finalists attend the conference. It is up to all finalists to organize their own travel arrangements to Helsinki. The organizers will endeavour to make available low cost accommodation, subject to availability.
16 There will be 3 winning ideas per transport mode. The winning young researcher prizes per mode consist of 1st (5000€), 2nd (3000€) and 3rd runner-up (2000€). All finalists will be given a certificate acknowledging their achievement.
17 Entrants must indicate a supervising professor and his/her organisation and contact details. The TRA VISIONS organisers can contact the supervising professor to verify the submitted idea and the entrants’ status. Entrants must provide all requested details when entering the competition, as outlined in the Application Form. Entrants must comply with all rules to be eligible for the prizes. No responsibility is accepted for ineligible entries or entries made fraudulently. Entrants will be deemed to have accepted these rules and to agree to be bound by them when entering this competition.
18 The TRA VISIONS organisers do not accept any responsibility for late or lost entries due to poor performance of the Internet or any other technical difficulties on the applicant’s side – applicants are advised to apply as early as possible.
19 Without the expressed permission of the organisers, this competition is not open to employees or contractors of the TRA Conference, or anyone already involved or participating in it, or any person directly or indirectly involved in the organisation or running of the TRA VISIONS competition, or their direct family members.
20 Evaluation of ideas is divided into three steps: an eligibility assessment, an online evaluation and a judging panel. The eligibility assessment is conducted by the TRA VISIONS organisers. Submissions which comply with the stated requirements are evaluated in a remote online evaluation in which two evaluators assess each eligible project and give a ranking. The final evaluation phase in which the shortlisted top 10 ideas for each mode are evaluated by a judging panel during a shortlisting Workshop determines the three top ideas per mode (road, rail, waterborne, air and cross-modality).
21 The judges’ decision is final in every situation including any not covered above and no correspondence will be entered into. The judges reserve the right to have discretion regarding the rules. The organisers reserve the right to cancel the competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in their opinion, and if circumstances arise outside of their control. The competition will be cancelled if financial support anticipated by the organisers does not materialise. In such circumstances, no costs will be refunded.