A Social Sciences and Humanities Research Agenda for Transport and Mobility in Europe: Key Themes and 100 Research Questions

Transport and mobility systems need to be transformed to meet climate change goals and reduce negative environmental and social effects. Despite EU policies having targeted such problems for more than three decades, transitions have been slow and geographically uneven. For effective change to happen, transport and mobility research needs fresh perspectives and better integration of knowledge from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Based on a Horizon Scanning approach, which allowed for a great deal of openness and variety in scholarly viewpoints this paper presents a novel research agenda consisting of 8 themes and 100 research questions that may contribute to achieving environmentally sustainable mobility transitions within Europe. We contend that this research agenda can be seen as a fifth generation of transport and mobility research, which highlights the need to not only support technological solutions for low-carbon mobility, but also puts issues of justice at centre stage. This agenda recognizes concerns of distributive justice, and also reiterates the importance of transformative policies that include new processes of knowledge production, civic participation and epistemic justice. Thus, this agenda points to the need for further research on the dynamics of science-society interactions.