Nine months after programme kick-off already 1,400 engineers at the SESAR member organisations took up the challenge and initiated 75% of the almost 300 projects equalling to €1.9 billion worth in contributions.
Considering the number of projects and actors involved, SESAR is one of the most ambitious and most innovative research and development projects ever launched by the European Union.
SESAR is the technological pillar of the European Unions Single European Sky legislative package. Given the complexity of the programme, since it includes the coordination of a wide range of actors, the European Union created a single management entity: the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU). Co-founded by Eurocontrol and the European Commission, the SJU is a public-private partnership in which 15 industry members perform the work necessary for the modernisation of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) in Europe.
In his opening speech at ATC Global, the largest international ATM/ATC Exhibition & Conference, Patrick KY, Executive Director of the SJU, started with a strong statement: The mindset of SESAR is crystal clear. We work with a distinct implementation goal in mind, in the short, medium and long term. For this reason end-users of the SESAR systems need to be involved in all the steps of the programme. Thanks to the 15 SESAR members and Eurocontrol, there is a large coverage of the skills on technical level within the programme. The SJU decided to go beyond its members and search for other types of actors, which, even if they do not perform directly ATM tasks themselves, have to be involved in the work programme like experts from airlines and air space users. The sum of these expertises makes SESAR a unique platform where the know-how of every single air transport actor in Europe is used to reform the ATM system.
Source JU