On 16th June 2008 the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will host in Brussels the launching conference of the research project “MOVE TOGETHER", financed under the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme for RTD. Co-organised with the Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems (ISIS, Italy), leader of the project consortium, the conference will establish a dialogue between citizens from the 27 EU member states representing the different cultures and urban settings of Europe and experienced stakeholders and decision-makers in the urban transport sector.

“MOVE TOGETHER" aims to provide civil-society inputs to the European Commission Green Paper “Towards a new culture for urban mobility” and provide the action plan to implement this.

European research on urban transport contributes to developing the best options to achieve a sustainable urban mobility for a greener, smarter, more accessible and safer city for all. The "MOVE TOGETHER" project has as a key objective to bridge the gap between research and practice by raising citizens' awareness and appreciation of this EU research. The key message of the project is that raising the awareness of current or expected achievements of EU research will help citizens and the decision makers across Europe to “move together” towards a new and more sustainable urban mobility culture.

The project has organised two focus groups of 27 lay citizens selected randomly from all the EU Member States to become informed on the EU urban transport research and give their appreciation of research efforts and achievements. The citizens will present and discuss their appreciation with various stakeholders and EU policy makers at the launching conference opened by Mr Stephane Buffetaut (EESC Group I, Employers, France), Vice-President of the EESC's Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and Information Society, and Mr Carlo Sessa, Move Together Coordinator (ISIS).