August 6th, 2013

Save the Aeronautics Collaborative Research in HORIZON 2020.

According to the latest Press Release of the European Commission concerning the Research and Innovation budget of HORIZON 2020 (H2020), a total of 70 billion Euros (B?) has been approved, of which 8.23% is attributed to Transport, that is 5.761 B?, for the seven year period of the H2020 program.

According to reliable sources, the Commission is considering, within the budget distribution in Transport, which covers Air, Land, Rail and Sea, to allocate 2.6 B? to Aeronautics, representing 45.1% of the Transport budget.
However, within this budget, 1.8 B? is attributed to the JTI CLEANSKY-2 and 600 M? to the Joint Undertaking (JU) of the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR).

As a consequence, 200 M? are left for the collaborative projects (L1 and L2, with a 50-50% repartition) over a period of 7 years!!

This is the worst scenario that the research and industrial aeronautical community could imagine, and ignores the positions outlined by ACARE and by the IMG4 industrial groups.
Both representative committees urge the EC to maintain the budget for Collaborative research at the FP7 level of 1.2 B? within H2020.

See the entire petition and support it by signing it here