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University of Groningen

Role in the project

The RUG will be the main coordinator of WP1, which is a work package that will continue throughout the whole lifetime of the project.

The main tasks foreseen for the RUG in the project are:

  • Project coordination

  • Identification of key social psychological predictors of public acceptability and public acceptance of CAV

  • Running studies and experiments with various road-users to develop an understanding of factors predicting acceptability and acceptance

  • Developing a social psychological model predicting acceptability/acceptance of CAV

  • Helping to define the concept of Friendly Automated Vehicle (ALFRED)

  • Participation in exploitation of findings

  • Dissemination of findings via scientific and stakeholder meetings

Partner description

The University of Groningen in the Netherlands was founded in 1614. It is the second oldest and third largest (30000 students, 5900 staff members) university in the Netherlands. The university offers more than 50 study programmes. Its federal funding (in Millions Euro) amounts to 426 and its external funding to 235 (in 2016).

The large proportion of external funding is mainly due to our success in highly competitive national (NWO) and European (ERC, Framework Programmes) funding schemes. For instance, since 2007 we have been awarded 72 ERC grants, placing us among the top institutes in Europe receiving this grant. In Horizon 2020 we participated in more than 160 projects, either as coordinator or as beneficiary.

The Department of Psychology is part of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences at the University of Groningen. Areas of activity are, amongst others, environmental and traffic psychology, with a special interest in factors influencing behaviours relevant for several domains such as sustainable mobility, sustained mobility of vulnerable road users, road-traffic safety, reduction of carbon-emissions, reduction of car use, adoption of (sustainable) innovations, and acceptability of policies. The department has been involved in various EU funded projects, including MIND-SETS, ASI, ADVISORS, AWAKE, BARENERGY, DRUID, GILDED, HASTE, HILAS, LOCAW, SAVE, TRAINER, and TRAVEL GUIDE. Besides, various projects have been funded by local and central government in the Netherlands (such as Royal Ahold, Essent, Univé, and various insurance companies) and by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

The Department of Psychology has excellent operational capacity (human and technical resources as well as excellent lab space and facilities) to carry out the proposed project.