Training partnership with Delft Road Safety Courses launched

8 January 2015

The FIA Foundation will merge its Road Safety Scholarship Programme with the Road Safety Course in Delft to offer a new two-week annual course in the Safe System approach to road safety. The course is targeted at professionals from government, international organisations, civil society, police, the private sector and universities and research organizations, all working on the frontline of the global road traffic injury epidemic. The course will be held at Delft University of Technology.

For the Delft Road Safety Courses, the partnership is the latest enhancement to its Postgraduate Road Safety Course. This annual course strongly focuses on high level capacity building. The philosophy behind this postgraduate course is straightforward: the intention is to support the development of road safety strategies and academic educational programmes in the LMICs, i.e. both at universities and for policymakers. This train-the-trainers approach will also help participants to develop curricula at their homeland universities. In the previous three years professionals from all over the world successfully took part in this course.

The partnership between DRSC and the FIA Foundation will be helpful in recruiting participants and will provide a strong financial basis for the organisation of the course in the next five years. The first joint course will be held in September 2015, with participants recruited early in the year. The scholars will include two annually from South Africa, as the new partnership maintains the link and commitment to the Zenani Mandela Scholarship Programme, managed in collaboration with the South African Department of Transport.

Professor Fred Wegman, Director of the Delft Road Safety Courses, said:

“Capacity building for road safety professionals in low and middle income countries is a real key activity to support these countries in designing and implementing effective road safety strategies and road safety programmes and projects. Effective strategies from high income countries cannot be simply copied but should be adapted to local conditions and circumstances. We trust that well-trained and knowledgeable experts from low and middle income countries can take care about this. We welcome our partnership with the FIA Foundation and we are looking forward to include their highly respected reputation, their worldwide experiences, and their international networks in our courses and by doing so, to further strengthen the courses in Delft the coming years and continue our high-level education.”

Saul Billingsley, Director General of the FIA Foundation, said:

“We are pleased to enter this partnership with Delft Road Safety Courses, which will bring together the best of both of our course programmes and enable continued strong training and, as important, a focus on alumni networking. Our funding commitment, for the remainder of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, combined with elements of our own scholarship programme, in particular on emphasis on the importance of practical multi-sectoral partnerships, will ensure the Road Safety Course in Delft is able to train and encourage many more young road safety leaders in the years ahead.”