Copenhagen—June 23, 2010

ECF President Manfred Neun opens Expo at Velo-city Global and launches the new ECF Network “Scientists for cycling”

Yesterday afternoon ECF President Manfred Neun opened the Expo at the Velo-city Global 2010 in Copenhagen. On this occasion he also launched the new ECF global Network “Scientists for cycling”.

In his speech, the ECF President underlined the importance of the Velo-city conference series as a tool for bringing people and stakeholders together in order to improve cycling through the exchange of knowledge, experience and expertise, both in Europe and worldwide: “The exhibition has a great added value for the participants. It creates a marketplace where you can see which services, projects and products can help to improve cycling and where you can meet the people behind these projects and products.”

The 42 stands of 32 different exhibitors (cities, projects, manufacturers, consultants, NGOs within the fields of cycling, urban planning and transportation) have been completely sold out weeks before the start of the conference. The ECF is present with a booth as well as the European project “PRESTO – Promoting cycling for everyone as a daily transport mode” in which the ECF participates. Further stands include also a French pavilion, a Dutch pavilion, the German Federal Ministry of Transport, The Cycling Embassy of Denmark, the German ECF member “ADFC – Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club” as well as next year’s Velo-city host city Seville (Spain).

During the Expo opening ECF president Manfred Neun officially launched the new ECF network “Scientists for cycling”. This network aims to unite scientists and professionals active for cycling and/or active cyclists, bringing together valuable insights and knowledge from all sciences that can be important for improving and increasing cycling. He invited interested scientists to solemnly sign the ECF “Scientist for cycling” banner at the ECF Booth. Many scientists followed his invitation afterwards. One of them, Roel Massink from the University of Twente (Netherlands) Cycling Academic Network commented: “It is important to gather and exchange information from different sciences, so that work is not done twice and researchers become aware of opportunities!”

The ECF believes that it is time to bundle the insights of all fields of interest in a network to stimulate exchange of expertise, to learn from each others’ perspectives as well as to join forces to form new interdisciplinary research and to speed up dissemination of examples of good practice. The ECF intends to encourage further research and to bring up new research agendas.

Scientists and professionals of all sciences and applied fields are welcome!

Find more information and the application form for “Scientists for cycling” under: http://ecf.com/3686_1