ISINNOVA, The Independent Research Centre, has won the prestigious AESS Mobility Award 2023 with the HANDSHAKE project

An enthusiastic end to the year for ISINNOVA. October and November were months full of prestigious awards for an independent research centre that has been working on European research and innovation projects for more than 50 years, with a particular focus on sustainability.

Winner of the Mobility Award 2023 in Modena

On 14 November, ISINNOVA won the 4th edition of the Mobility Award 2023, organised by AESS – Agency for Energy and Sustainable Development, on the occasion of the Bioarchitecture and Sustainability Week. The award ceremony took place in Modena at the Ferrari Museum, with Mario GualdiMario Gualdi, President of ISINNOVA and leader of the winning research project, personally receiving the award.

The nominated project was HANDSHAKE, part of the CIVITAS group of European projects, which was declared the winner in the second award category, “Services and solutions for behaviour change to promote sustainable mobility of people and goods“. The AESS Mobility Award is open to universities, research institutes, innovation centres, companies and start-ups, professional firms, public authorities, schools, associations and citizens’ groups involved in innovative sustainable mobility projects.

The award recognises projects that aim to innovate the public and private transport system through more sustainable solutions for cities and towns, with a particular focus on the environment and collective mobility, creating infrastructures and organisational networks that lead to zero-emission urban mobility.


The HANDSHAKE project in brief

HANDSHAKE brought together Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Munich, 3 true cycling havens recognised worldwide, to promote 10 new cycling capitals of the future, namely Bordeaux, Bruges, Cadiz, Dublin, Helsinki, Krakow, Manchester, Riga, Rome and Turin. The project was a means of influencing and supporting behavioural change towards cycling as a means of urban transport, helping to reduce the dominance of the private car in urban environments and driving urban regeneration.

In the HANDSHAKE experience, mobility/environment/energy managers and local and regional planners were supported by ‘technical’ partners and experts, including consultants specialising in strategic decision-making, sustainable urban mobility planning networks, research institutes with a multidisciplinary approach to understanding and explaining the causes and effects of urban cycling, cyclists’ associations and active mobility advocacy groups specialising in awareness raising.

HANDSHAKE has achieved a number of important results. These are:

1. Cyclists’ perception of safety increased from +23% (Amsterdam) to +125% (Munich).
2. Bicycle use increased by 28.3% compared to 2018.
3. Projected increase in cycling by a further 40% by 2030.
4. Significant increase in total kilometres travelled by bicycle, from 26.2 million km in 2018 to 44 million km by bicycle in 2021. The average distance cycled per trip will increase from 1.31 km per day to 2.28 km per day.
5. Based on surveys and expert consultations, the overall net effect of the measures implemented by HANDSHAKE was in the order of 34% compared to the no-action scenario.

Through 60 technical and organisational solutions in 13 European cities, the project achieved an estimated average annual saving of 3,706,000 kg CO2/year.

Read the case study