Lobbying by Association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics

Association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics

EREA

EREA, the association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics is a non-profit organisation which gathers Europe’s twelve most outstanding research centres active in the field of aeronautics and air transport.

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ID: 010397411668-54

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Christophe Grudler (Member of the European Parliament) and Airbus

1 Dec 2025 · Politique aéronautique européenne

Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

7 Nov 2025

The reasoning for the headlines below can be found in detail in the attached position paper. Research and innovation (R&I) investment has made European aviation the worldwide leader in civil aviation and air traffic management. Aviation is a major socio-economic contributor to Europe, supporting 15 million jobs and contributing EUR 1.1 trillion to our economies. It drives innovation and enhances Europes global influence and security through its combined focus on sustainability and competitiveness. The Association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics (EREA) unites 15 European aviation applied research and technology organisations (RTOs) that create and develop, clean technologies to address today's biggest societal challenges. These include decarbonisation and climate neutral mobility, clean energy and safety. EREA members also operate many technology infrastructures (TIs), such as wind tunnels, structural test facilities and research aircraft. Together, EREA members have engaged for 30 years in collaborative research projects and partnerships (HE pillar 2), addressing challenges that cannot be tackled and implemented adequately at the national level, and not by industry or universities alone. Applied research, including its infrastructures, is crucial in bridging the valley of death. Technologies developed in aviation are used and thus necessary in other sectors. Aviation is an indispensable part of the global transport system and has strong links to the overall energy system. Other sectors will suffer without new technologies coming from aviation. Positive Notes EREA values that the EC recognises the importance of the following matters: 1. The ECs proposal to set up Horizon Europe as a self-standing programme with its own regulation. 2. Increasing the HE budget to roughly 175bn 3. Funding the entire R&I chain with suitable instruments from basic to applied research with low and medium TRL, demonstration and market readiness. 4. Continuing collaborative research and partnerships 5. Facilitating cross-border and cross-disciplinary cooperation through collaborative research projects and partnerships. 6. Including TIs for the first time under HEs pillar 4 European Research Area is a great sign from the EC on how essential Tis are for Europes technological sovereignty, strategic autonomy and competitiveness 7. Preserving HEs familiar items: excellence as an evaluation criterion, actions and instruments will smoothen transitioning from one framework programme (FP) to the next one. 8. Integrating the structure of HE and the ECF 9. Implementing moonshot projects will provide valuable impetus for future competitiveness Need for Improvement EREA highlights the following concerns in the proposed legislation: 1. Recognise aviation as a strategic sector for Europe 2. FP10 needs a dedicated independent funding stream for aviation. 3. Clarify the relation between HE and the ECF 4. Ensure that no diversion of HE funding takes place 5. Avoid reducing the collaborative research budget in HE 6. Rebalance pillar II Funding in HE 7. Strengthen RTOs position within the EIC funding architecture 8. Avoid adding burden for stakeholders through simplification efforts 9. Address concerns over more open and less prescriptive calls in HE for the sake of simplification 10. Ensure that funding dual use R&I does not to come at the cost of civil aviation and define clear boundary conditions Need for Clarification EREA finds that the following issues need to be clarified: 1. Demonstrate how the full R&I Chain with TRL schemes is supported 2. Simplify access for RTOs, universities and SMEs, including deep-tech start- and scale-ups 3. Clarify uncertainties on moonshot design, funding, governance and long-term R&D orientation of Clean Aviation moonshot, including budget allocations and stakeholder contributions. 4. Ensure stakeholder involvement in governance 5. Use lessons from European Technology Platforms

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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

7 Nov 2025

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Response to EU’s next long-term budget (MFF) – EU funding for competitiveness

7 Nov 2025

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Response to European Innovation Act

2 Oct 2025

EREA would like to help smaller companies, startups & scale ups (SMEs) overcome their limited access to Research and Technology Infrastructures (TIs). This in light of the European Innovation Acts wider aim to foster competitiveness through helping smaller companies, startups & scale ups to access the market and properly develop relevant technologies. EREA appreciates that EC includes TIs under Pillar IV European Research Area, recognizing them as a key asset to overcome the Death Valley in the development stages. EREA members, and RTOs in general, operate and manage most TIs, which makes them aware of challenges to access and creates ideas to overcome these. EREA recommends the following actions to improve SMEs access to TIs: implement supporting measures to improve the cost coverage (eligibility of full cost tariffs) in EU framework programs, making the use of TIs more appealing. Testing costs represent an access barrier for SMEs and TIs operational and maintenance costs are continuously increasing. To support TIs sustainability, both for proprietary work and for a research project, a full-cost recovery on a pay-for-use basis is required to the perspective customer for using the infrastructure. As per the current rules in HE, just part of the direct costs may be accounted when an infrastructure is used, thus limiting and discouraging their use in projects. adopt novel funding instruments, such as a voucher system available for specified beneficiaries, covering, e.g. fixed costs of a test, or enhanced cascading grants like open calls. maintain updated mapping of existing and accessible TIs available to all stakeholders to raise awareness of testing capabilities in Europe. This is a pre-requisite for identifying and filling gaps in the TIs ecosystem. When analyzing the mapping, several small infrastructures of the same kind (usually addressed as an overlap) should not be considered negatively, but in a positive note, as geographic proximity of a company to a test site helps reducing testing costs. establish a permanent platform (a one stop shop) to match supply and demand of infrastructures. The proposed solution is intended as a digital platform providing to the users a guided and interactive exploration of TIs and a description of related testing capabilities, technologies to be developed in such infrastructures and a complete set of information concerning IPR, access conditions, rates, contact details. This approach will benefit SMEs, especially when entering a new market, as they may suffer from a lack of experience to properly address their actual testing needs. further explore how digitalizing TIs can drastically reduce testing costs. Realizing digital twins in TIs will support: developing technologies in their earlier stages; preparing better physical tests; reducing the risk and time of those tests, enabling a better exploitation of the test results (especially for alleviating/correcting the physical test biases), reducing the need for physical attending a test campaign, cutting a significant cost item. support actions to attract, cultivate and train skilled personnel to maintain TIs highest level of expertise. TI operators face challenges to the expertise needed to continue operating complex, strategic TIs. They need to provide the services that innovation actors require, now and in the future. This involves a wide spectrum of skills; some are infrastructure specific and most are rare on the market and require a long time to develop. New technologies, mainly related to digitalization, pose further issue to attract skills that are new for the operations of TIs. EREA suggests to implement dedicated actions to attract, cultivate and train skilled personnel on TIs, maintain the highest level of expertise among already operating staff which is as essential as the infrastructure to be able to readily respond to testing demand of customer. Such actions could also include inter-operator staff exchanges.

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Response to European strategy on research and technology infrastructures

22 May 2025

Both Research Infrastructures (RIs) and Technology Infrastructures (TIs) represent a core asset for European research, strategic autonomy and competitiveness. Whilst RIs have been widely supported in the past by the Commission, also through the notable set-up of ESFRI, a dedicated supporting strategy for TIs, which represent a main asset for the competitiveness goals of Europe, still is at the beginning. EREA highly values and acknowledges such a consideration by the Commission for TIs and supports the main pillars of its future strategy; however, by looking at the different maturity level of supporting strategies for RIs and TIs, it is suggested at this stage to keep separate initiatives and concrete actions for these two kinds of infrastructures. However, we see the need to establish a similar strategic approach for Technology infrastructure (e.g. setting up a strategy for TIs). TIs in some domains, e.g. aviation (especially large-scale infrastructures), are typically capital intensive, with high upfront costs and expensive periodic maintenance as well as upgrading costs to ensure continued service and relevance. For this reason, but also because those kinds of infrastructures were built in response to national, strategic needs, with supporting investments usually part of national and regional strategies, they are in general not operated by commercial entities but by (public) Research Establishments, such as individual members of EREA, subsidized at a national / regional level. Because of this, the Technology Infrastructures found a stable embedding in not-for-profit organizations, which ensure their financial and operational management. The aforementioned considerations should lead the European strategy on Research and Technology Infrastructures pay attention to the following points: 1. National / regional priorities enshrined by the subsidiarity principle are limiting the relevance and possibility of pooling and prioritisation of investments at EU level 2. In addition, simplified procedures would be welcome as stronger alignment/compatibility between European, National and Regional funding would allow a better answer to the various needs of the TIs. 3. The cyclic nature of activities for these TIs such as large industrial wind tunnels that are strategic for aviation, defence and space, chiefly depending on industries development programme, requires to maintain capabilities and competences and therefore some support or incentive policy for maintaining the full capability of such physical assets in low-demand periods as well as for preserving highly qualified personnel needed to operate these facilities), 4. As most of the TIs have a very long life-cycle (often more than 50 years) which implies extremely high and regular upgrade costs, the European Strategy on Research and Technology Infrastructures should include a specific modernisation effort for their competitiveness, including digitalization, 5. To really support competitiveness, TIs must be a. made accessible (by the fees to be paid for their use point of view), also to SMEs and start-ups, and b. known by these potential new users that are SMEs and startups, which poses an urgent need to raise awareness of their capabilities, also in cross-related domains. Specific actions in the future funding tools could be considered, such as the possibility to include digitalization upgrades in the funding instruments (in response to the aging issue), the creation of permanent dedicated instruments, such as vouchers or financial support for technical consulting before and/or after testing, to support SMEs and start-ups to cover testing fees and better preparation / exploitation of results, and a one-stop shop service at EU level to raise awareness. 6. In addition, apart from the legal set-up ERIC, which is involving only MS, further legal form, also allowing combination of private partners for TIs need to be developed.

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Response to Options for support for R&D of dual-use technologies

30 Apr 2024

EREA, the association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the European Commission's White Paper On options for enhancing support for research and development involving technologies with dual-use potential. The attached feedback provides the considerations of EREA members on the options described in the European Commissions White Paper.

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Response to A Drone Strategy 2.0 for Europe

2 Jul 2021

The roadmap is a step towards a Drone Strategy 2.0 for 2022 onwards. EREA, Association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics, welcomes the approach of the EC, appreciates that EC included public acceptance in this high-level document and would like to highlight the following remarks: - For some topics EREA found the link missing with multimodality and link with city infrastructure. To support drone operations the infrastructure in the city will need to change, including some vertiports or vertistops. This is not an easy topic - public acceptance, noise, sustainability are involved in this discussion, as well as the location, type of infrastructure & amount of vertiports needed to support of operations - Public acceptance has to be addressed by analysing all its related pillars, eg Safety Perception (that may differ from the strict safety expert point of view), Privacy, impact on jobs & environmental impact (build up of waste from batteries and impact on wildlife and energy usage), besides noise, noise perception & perceived vibrations also visual disturbances can create problems - Multimodality will be key for enabling UAM – how to link to other transport modes & their infrastructure, how to ensure that drones are enabling smart mobility instead of adding to the problem. Need to develop new types of services & capabilities along the value chain (eg vertiport operators) thus training needs for operators of the system - Rules for emergency/landing spots requirements are necessary, as well as minimization of risk for people & infrastructures on the ground in case of accidents by adopting a clear complete framework of norms (prescriptions) and derived procedures - Need to identify, evaluate & properly manage security risks (physical & cybersecurity) associated to the introduction of drones to properly address the possible counter measures which in turn could represent hazards in a complex (populated & critical) scenario. Need to share among MS best practices, approaches, rules to manage such security risks, need for experimental infrastructures supporting also Law enforcement agencies at national level in testing/validating countermeasures - It could be interesting to look at the environmental impact & sustainability of drone operations – LCA, energy consumption, renewable energy for charging, soil sealing, battery disposal, wildlife, emissions. How to ensure that drone industry is also circular? The concept should be rephrased to “providing a strategy for enabling the sustainability & circularity of drones by fostering the required technologies, processes & infrastructure - Should the EU focus on the regulatory and enabling frame work activities. Is an active role for the EU desirable as an enabler for international experimental sites and full scale field lab experiments to accelerate the development of the drone eco system and digital transformation and stimulate a market-led business environment and thus encourage private sector investments. Some pilot scenarios could be chosen in Europe to start experimenting (provided that metrics, KPIs & related measurement frameworks are set up) benefits in adoption along different properties eg environmental, time & cost efficiency, competitiveness, public acceptance - Positive that the roadmap addresses civil/defence & space synergies, C-UAS & military use of drone are part of the Drone Strategy - Include the space sector for the targeted consultation - Identify EU Aerospace Research Centers as stakeholders in the targeted consultation: the topic of drones represents a key topic for which EREA, with the independent role from its research centers (no profit, no vendors) can constitute a valuable support to the adoption of this new paradigm by setting up a network of distributed experimental/digital facilities to test, validate the safety, security of drones & counterdrones applications - supporting LEAS & Civil Aviation Authorities or even vendors in validation/certification.

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Response to New EU urban mobility framework

25 May 2021

EREA welcomes a renewed effort towards a more smart, safe and sustainable urban mobility. When reviewing the Urban Mobility Package, EREA advises the European Commission to take the below aspects into account. - When talking about Urban Mobility, the European Union must fully acknowledge the air-dimension and integrate it in its urban and mobility policy. Accessing and utilising air transport and mobility is no longer just for travelling long distances, but will increasingly be available to a wide public. The Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy recognises the opportunities of drones as an innovative way of transport, but fails to integrate it in relevant policy, such as Urban Mobility. - Integrating the Air-dimension into Urban Policy is not just about grasping the opportunities, it is also about safety & security. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the wrong hands can do considerable damage in urban areas. Counter UAV should be part of any mobility strategy. In addition, urban emergency services should be able to also make full use of the air-dimension. - Drones and urban air mobility also introduce vehicles to the lower level airspace near and above cities. This exposes people to noise, risk and potential privacy concerns in new ways. The European Union needs to understand this impact and investigate how to best utilise this new technology together with local communities and businesses. - Pollution in and near large cities can also be caused by nearby airports and is often much more complex than CO2 alone. EREA advocates for proper attention for urban airports as well as the full spectrum of emissions, including noise. Take for instance noise on impact mitigation and its relevance to the built environment (ANIMA project, Grant# 769627). A increased use of zero-emission electric aircraft may be cause for near-city airports previously closed due to pollution to open once again, providing new opportunities and challenges to cities. - The services such urban airports provide fit perfectly in a future Mobility as a Service concept, offering multimodal travel options. Therefore, such urban airports, as well as Urban Air Mobility must be part of any urban mobility policy. - Finally, smart Urban logistics must be explicitly mentioned in any Urban mobility policy. The air-dimension offers solutions to congested urban logistics. Therefore, a coherent and integrated mobility AND logistics vision, including the air dimension, should be considered. The (urban) challenges of space, congestion and environmental impact are too large to discard the under-utilised air dimension. EREA is the association of leading European Research Establishments in Aviation. EREA and its institutes have a long track record in all facets of urban air mobility. As such, EREA offers its expertise to the European Commission.

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Response to Communication on the future of research and innovation and the European Research Area

28 Jul 2020

EREA Position EC Consultation on the Roadmap towards the ERA Communication EREA welcomes the new approach of the European Commission to revitalize and improve the European Research Area. Apart from the topics laid down in the roadmap EREA would like to highlight two very important issues, which should be addressed in the expected ERA communication: - With respect to the harmonization of national R&I programs EREA proposes to address in particular the harmonization and better cooperation of national institutional programs. EREA has already started a successful initiative within Horizon 2020 under the EREA Future Sky Safety project, in which gaps and overlaps of the national institutional safety programs performed by EREA members were analyzed and the potential for future cooperation was identified. Unfortunately the support for this kind of harmonization was stopped by EC in the further course of H2020. But EREA sees the needs to support this kind of harmonization as it will improve the cooperation between national research and innovation efforts and thus will improve efficiency and effectiveness of European research. - With respect to European R&I Infrastructures EREA would like to highlight the need to address also Technology Infrastructures (TIs) in addition to the Research Infrastructures, important to achieve scientific excellence, currently managed in ESFRI. For every technological breakthrough, Technology Infrastructures are key to prove an idea, test & validate the technology and simulate its effectiveness (instrumental for upscaling). Europe needs a landscape of high quality, large scale RI covering the entire TRL ladder. In order to bring technologies beyond the lab-environment, applied test facilities, or Technology Infrastructures are indispensable in the innovation process; without them research cannot be valorized into products and services. Therefore EREA proposes to increase awareness, improve coordination and provide support to Technology Infrastructures into the expected Communication on ERA.

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Meeting with Jean-Eric Paquet (Director-General Research and Innovation)

9 Dec 2019 · Key note speaker/Annual event

Response to European Partnership for Integrated Air Traffic Management

27 Aug 2019

In order to meet the Flightpath 2050 goals and the goals as formulated in the ATM Master Plan and the Single European Sky framework, Europe needs an ATM Partnership to step up research and innovation. The SESAR programmes have proven to be an excellent platform for R&I, but more needs to be done. EREA advocates a continuation of the SESAR programme and strengthening the Exploratory Research pillar to meeting medium-long term challenges to make European aviation safer, more secure, greener and more efficient. To do so, EREA recommends the following: • A better transition through the innovation pipeline must be ensured: o Research Establishments are needed to establish a better balance between technology push and market pull. To establish a smooth transfer of the results of TRL level 2 of the Exploratory Research into the Industrial Research up to TRL level 6 in the ATM partnership, the Research Establishments (REs) are essential in due consideration of their independent and public role. In addition, REs are well equipped to feed new technologies into the research pipeline. Good examples from the past are Remote Tower and Flight Centered ATC. The involvement of REs in the new partnership will contribute to a healthy balance between technology push and market pull, ensuring a smoother transition through the R&I pipeline. If the new partnership will be dominated by the service providers, ground industry and airborne industry the technology push will be minimized, being limited to the portfolio of the industry, and only short term goals will be achieved creating a gap in the R&I pipeline in terms of enabling technologies for medium-long term solutions. o Research establishments are well equipped for Validations and Very Large Scale Demonstrations; thus, research establishments should play a more important role in the future partnership for the Industrial Research and the Very Large Scale Demonstrations. The REs have flexible (rapid prototyping) tools and facilities to tailor new technologies for both local implementation (ANSPs, Airports) as well as Very Large Scale Demonstrations (tailoring for the locale situations) without very costly modifications of the operational systems. • The SESAR Exploratory Research is essential to feed the innovation pipeline and must be reinforced. Therefore an appropriate amount of budget should be reserved for Exploratory Research (ER) activities. In the current SESAR 2020 programme most ER projects are limited to a funding of 1 or 2 M€ with a duration of 24 months (+ 6 months for dissemination). The project size (e.g. Max allowed funding) and the project duration should be more increased and reflect the purpose and goals of the respective topics. The successor of SESAR 2020 should reinforce the development of new technologies and procedures, with a part dedicated to simulation, to help airports, air traffic controllers and airlines to deliver more safe and efficient operations in combination with minimizing the environmental impact. In doing so, new technologies and developments, such as digitalisation (incl. augmented and virtual reality), automation, single pilot operations, artificial intelligence, big data, block chain, unmanned air traffic management and cybersecurity, must be addressed. EREA calls on the Commission to support the ATM partnership strengthening of the exploratory research pillar also ensuring the appropriate link to the Clean Aviation partnership and taking into account the new vehicles that will be developed (e.g. urban air mobility, etc). The JU is recognized as a highly effective means of implementation of the programme, the right instrument in an area requiring substantial resources (financial, know-how and research capabilities) and where EU global competitiveness is at stake. It is efficient, delivers against its objectives and is effectively managed to build a community engaged in ATM/Aviation technologies.

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Response to European Partnership for Clean Aviation

27 Aug 2019

EREA favors an approach where in addition to cross-cutting issues and projects for intermodality each transport mode has its own programme. This will facilitate on European level the implementation of mode specific R&I strategies, like the ACARE SRIA. Having a dedicated programme for clean aviation research will better guarantee the flow of technology from low to high TRLs than generic programmes. Aeronautics and ATM research should keep a high visibility in Horizon Europe. EREA favors an approach which ensures the integration of future clean aviation collaborative research (low-medium TRLs) and demonstrator programme into the future Public-Private Partnership (PPP) under the same organisational umbrella using an open neutral process guided by the EC with adequate rules, governance & budgets for upstream and demonstration approaches. Within the Work Programme of the European Partnership for Clean Aviation there should be room for (i) large demonstrators; (ii) applied research projects (projects not limited to demonstrators but including validation and subsystems on ground demonstration up to TRL 5; including EREA Future Sky projects) and (iii) upstream research (including EREA Future Sky contributions). Such an organisational system (similar to former FPs with L1/L2/L3-type projects) would enable integration of both upstream and top down research under the same organisational umbrella with demonstrations, medium sized projects, small projects, and would have similarities with the current way of functioning of SESAR except that EREA claims for a reinforcement of the funding for the low-TRL research as well as for the bottom-up research parts in the future aviation PPP. Besides reinforcing the early phases of the R&TD cycle, the Clean Aviation partnership must also strengthen the role of Research Establishments. REs are well positioned to work with both universities and industry to bridge the death valley of R&I and move technologies through the entire pipeline. This option would bring together the full Aviation Research scope into PPP umbrella (JU based on Article 187), from the upstream research up to demonstrators, for a more consistent, seamless & flexible technology roadmap to implement the ACARE SRIA action lines. Compared to the current Clean Sky 2 JTI and in order to take into account the bottom-up approach in the full aeronautics research scope, an adapted and specific governance should be implemented in the future aviation PPP, with an industry-led approach for demonstrators on the one hand and a research centres-led one on the other hand. Furthermore the European Partnership for Clean Aviation should be based on open calls for proposals for the whole Work Programme to allow open competition while keeping industry fully involved. Although both approaches should have their own specific governance model, they should not operate in splendid isolation. Only when well connected a seamless flow of technology can be ensured. As regards the upstream and applied research part (research-led) this programme should be prepared on the basis of inputs by the research stakeholders. EREA (cf Future Sky initiative) is ready and willing to be closely involved in the process of developing the long-term research programme in due consideration of long standing experience in managing institutional national programmes, of no private interest and of the role of REs dedicated to bridging the gap between academia and industry in the R&I chain. All calls should be open and accessible to all stakeholders and each Call for Proposal would be validated by an aviation specific Programme Committee. EREA advocates a 50% budget sharing between Explore & Mature and Integrate & Demonstrate in next Aviation partnership. New and existing research infrastructures (RIs) are more than ever necessary to support the revolution to zero-emission aviation. There should be a clear instrument for using RIs as well as an instrument to set up new (digital) RIs.

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Meeting with Henrik Hololei (Director-General Mobility and Transport)

9 Nov 2018 · Research in aviation

Meeting with Jean-Eric Paquet (Director-General Research and Innovation)

9 Nov 2018 · Horizon Europe

Response to MFF: 9th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and Rules for Participation and Dissemination

23 Aug 2018

Please find enclosed the EREA's Key Recommendations on the European Commission’s legislative proposal of Horizon Europe (COM(2018) 435).

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Meeting with Manuel Nobre Goncalves (Cabinet of Commissioner Carlos Moedas)

30 Nov 2017 · FP9