Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - e-CAERO 2 (European Collaborative Dissemination of Aeronautical research and applications 2)

Teaser

The six scientific association participating in E-CAero2 have the global aim to spread the scientific exchange and knowledges across the scientific comminuty, but also across institutions, and general public. Scientific communication proceeds through two main channels: (1)...

Summary

The six scientific association participating in E-CAero2 have the global aim to spread the scientific exchange and knowledges across the scientific comminuty, but also across institutions, and general public. Scientific communication proceeds through two main channels: (1) social events like conferences and (2) written articles published in dedicated scientific journals and books. Both were concerned in E-CAero, with emphasis de facto placed on the first.
The E-CAero programme has accomplished a great deal in generating a community spirit and developing a friendly and constructive atmosphere between the six players, who hardly knew each other at the start. A significant number of conferences of medium and large scales were run that featured co-organised sessions, a great step towards broadening the visibility and enhancing the value of the meetings. Further, interaction and cross-fertilisation between scientific disciplines and between some industrial activity sectors that before didn’t interact greatly with aeronautics has been fostered. This, incidentally, is unique; it is an important asset for Europe.
These associations conduct all of their activities or part of them within the Aeronautics/ Turbomachinery/Aerospace sectors in Europe. The project aims at coordinating and harmonising the dissemination of knowledge and advances accomplished in these areas.The project answers the MG1.6-2014 topic within the Transport Societal Challenge of H2020 framework programme with the aim of creating ECAA (European Community in Aeronautics and Astronautics).
The objectives of E-Caero 2 can be extended as a continuation path from the former project E-Caero. These objectives, keeping in mind the paradigm of creating ECAA as a tool to implement them and to provide sustainable continuity in the future are listed below:
• Enhance the communication between the associations: reaching an upgraded level of communication among partners as a follow-up task of what has been done in E-Caero,
• Set-up of a logistic platform with advanced IT tools shared by associations and unify the existing logistics among the consortium, which will help to harmonize the actions from each partner and reach other objectives,
• Progress in the synchronization of events as a follow-up of what has been done in E-CAero, avoiding overlapping between organizations and conferences. Merging or clustering events, where appropriate in order to ensure better scientific or technical quality by aggregating expertise and avoiding redundancies,
• Taking initiatives towards joint publication policy in Europe,
• Promoting a co-ordinating federation of associations, but which nevertheless does not affect negatively activities of each association,
• Providing a more visible European label to aeronautical events and publications initialised by the associations,
• Establishing a unified logistics network and an ad hoc secretariat for events of the ECAA in a sustainable way, e.g. by an ECAA administration office,
• Properly quantifying the size of the scientific/industrial community and the desirable number of events,
• Offering a better harmonized information to scientists and technologists for their research and their designed products with a broad range of expertise at a glance by collaborative events,
• Establishing guidelines for a common policy in the Aerospace Research Publication domain with focus on open access.
Almost all the defined objectives above represent the rational follow-up of the objectives defined in E-CAero. Some of them are already fulfilled, although E-CAero 2 must deepen on the tasks to go one/several step(s) beyond.

Work performed

E-CAero2 project has dealt with several topics at the same time. All of them related to the dissemination activites and the homogenezation of these activities. The creation of the Aerospace Europe association is one of the major goals of the project and has taken a lot of effort. But it is not the only issue on the table. The second issue in importance is the homogenezation of scientific events across Europe, aimed to increase the visibility and the impact of the events. To this end a huge effort have been dedicated to the joint organization of the 2017 CEAS-EUCASS conference. Finally, the third issue where the socieites have put a lot of effort has been the creation of the Aerospace Europe webpage. This webpage is an upgrade of the E-CAero project website, and is intended to be a reference place where to find the last updated information about events, research, publications and any outreach activity in the framework of the aeronautical field and those related. Of course, other topics can be listed where the partners involved has devoted a lot of effort (Historical analysis of events, definition of the newsletter and formats, etc...), but these topics are collateral to the main goals of the project.
After spending a large number of meetings, both bilateral and multilateral meeting, where all the partners in the consortium have partipated, it has been agreed to pospone the Organization of the joint event by 2019. Discussions are still ongoing, including tòpics like the participation of the six partners, as well as other European associations, the Distribution of responsabilities both technical and administrative to fulfil the requirements of a joint Organization. Poasitions are closer today, so, although the project already finished in December 2017, the consortium have decided to continously seek for an agreement and to organize the joint event in 2019. It would mean the take off of the new Aerospace Europe association, not as a legal, but as an umbrella association to cover all the activity related to this tòpic.
Regarding the webpage, the reader can consult the aerospace-europe.eu and surf on it to find the available information about publications, events and research.

Final results

The E-CAero2 project is improving the collaborative dissemination of the aeronautic, astronautics & turbomachinery research in Europe and consequently is increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of the European aeronautic industry. The joint organization of events, and the collaboration among societies is an on-going task across the project timeline. The creation of Aerospace europe (AE) association will lead to clustering the different associations in the dissemination of their activities and outcomes. AE association will be an umbrella where all the societies will contribute creating a place of collaboration. AE association is expected to produce a transversal diffusion of the information and knowledge resulting in a better understanding of the state-of-the-art techniques, experimental knowledge and simulation tools. The Aeronautic industry with its related research is the paradigm of complexity: the different actors involved in the design or manufacturing of products follow their single role but very few have a clear vision of the whole plot. E-CAero2 is contributing to improve the global performance by allowing each player to realize its own importance and to strengthen the links with the others.

Website & more info

More info: http://aerospace-europe.eu.