Research and development portfolio

How the Research and Development (R&D) Portfolio collaborates to innovate

Our R&D portfolio brings together R&D in one place and unlocks benefits across Network Rail. 

The most pressing outcome from the Portfolio is to make the cost of running the railway more affordable. Enabling us to deliver the scale of renewals and maintenance required to support safe and reliable train services without the need to increase spending. 

We are investing £245m of Network Rail funding, together with third-party funding, to de-risk technologies, explore new ideas, products and services to benefit passengers and freight users. We estimate our current portfolio will return around £3 for every £1 spent. Our portfolio is delivered through collaboration and partnerships. We succeed through others.

Delivering through partnerships

We have delivery partnerships with leading rail research universities. These institutions are part of the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network (UKRRIN) partnership between suppliers and universities. By accessing shared opportunities, we are able to drive high value manufacturing capability through the manufacturing technology centre. Managing our challenge-led competitions in partnership with Innovate UK. We have many partnerships that support our projects and programmes under the R&D Portfolio. 

Collaborating internationally

We collaborate internationally on delivery as one of 8 founding members for the Shift2Rail programme and through partnerships under membership groups including the International Union of Railways.   

Related pages

Research, development and innovation

We've been working together for hundreds of years to create the railway. Collaborating, competing and innovating to transform how it's used by our people and passengers. In doing so, we've contributed to creating a world...

Shift2Rail

Network Rail is a Founding Partner of Shift2Rail and active in four of its five Innovation Programmes. Shift2Rail is a European technology, research and development collaboration programme. It's funded jointly by its members and Horizon 2020, a European Commission...

Challenge statements

The challenge statements have been created to support our technical strategy and the railway’s future vision as set out in the Rail Technical Strategy Each challenge statement details a specific business obstacle. And provides detail on...

Target 190: Sustainable signalling renewals

We’re developing the tools needed to reduce the cost of signalling to make the railway sustainable and affordable for the future. The railway faces a major industry challenge, where the cost and volume of future...