LEADER 2030 intelligence analysis and recommendations to deliver Europe's Rail in 2030 (version for the Stakeholders Public Consultation phase)

This document represents the basis for a Stakeholders’ Public Consultation phase to be run in the framework of the “LEADER 2030 project” between January 7^th and February 28^th, 2026.

The “LEADER 2030-Learnings for European Autonomy to Deliver Europe’s Rail in 2030” project has for main objective to conduct research activities aiming at providing answer to the following key question: “will there be enough raw materials and components to bring to the market in 2030 all the Railway innovations EU-Rail is delivering?”

The document condenses and summarises for a public usage facts, trends and recommendations resulting from more than 800 pages of desk and field analysis and research produced so far under the “LEADER 2030” project, namely the Deliverables:

• D1.1 – Map of disruptions experienced so far by the Rail Supply industry and lessons for the future (developed by ERCI-European Railway Clusters Initiative), providing key insights from desk research on disruptions in supplies having impacted Europe in the most recent years, as well as the results of the European survey of the Rail Supply industry on disruptions experienced since 2018, launched by the project
• D1.2 – Lessons on disruptions and resilience from other sectors (developed by Teknopark Istanbul and ERCI-European Railway Clusters Initiative), providing analysis of the Defence, Aerospace, Clean Energy Infrastructures, Automotive sectors under the point of view of dependencies, disruptions and policy measures adopted to reduce their vulnerabilities; cross-references between these sectors and the railway sector, where relevant; summary of take-aways/inspirations considered more relevant for the prosecution of the project
• D1.3 – Supplies alerts for the future (developed by ERCI-European Railway Clusters Initiative), detailing about the type of railway supplies affected by disruptions, listing which end products are suffering from different types of supply difficulties
• D2.1 – Map of Railway needs in 2030 (developed by Railenium), comprehensively mapping Europe’s Rail innovations expected by 2030, identifying necessary technologies, raw materials, and supply chain requirements across various tiers (OEM, Tier 1, 2, 3), as well as highlighting subsystems and components that will become obsolete or significantly reduced due to technological advancements, signaling key areas of industry transformation
• D3.1 – Forecast for autonomy, bottlenecks and gaps for Europe’s Rail 2030 raw material supply (developed by GKZ-Geokompetenzzentrum Freiberg), analysing past crises causing raw material supply distortions and availability constraints; assessing disruptions linked to energy politics and shortages, including risks from production closures or outsourcing; reviewing sourcing strategies of the most affected EU Member States, with a focus on countries with strong rail economies; mapping the availability, provenance and supply chains of key raw materials, including European and overseas sourcing options; examining EU and global regulatory frameworks affecting access and economically viable domestic sourcing; addressing geopolitical factors and sustainable sourcing schemes to support a resilient rail supply chain up to 2030
• plus, other systematised data gathered on a continuous basis during the project implementation from multiple sources (desk analysis, field visits, specialistic workshops and online meetings, participation in conferences) and used to complement, strengthen and validate the project results.

In specific details, this document aims at presenting the following to the target audience:

• PART I: a synthetic but comprehensive framework analysis of the state of the art and multiple factors impacting and suitable to further condition the availability of critical supplies required by the rail sector, now and in the future. This section serves as an ‘introductory journey’ to the following parts to provide the right framing and understanding of the specific challenges affecting the rail sector and the recommendations proposed.
• PART II: a snapshot of how the rail value chain has been already impacted by supply disruptions, as well as of how some key innovations promoted by the Europe’s Rail Programme risk to be impacted by the above framework.
• PART III: a set of recommendations for both the rail industry and European, National, Regional institutions to increase the availability of critical supplies needed, thus fostering European industrial autonomy and an ‘undisrupted’ transformation of the European rail sector through the regular introduction of the target innovations.