Growing societal demands such as care for the environment and increased mobility - which in practical terms means boosting airline-passenger-carrying capacity to meet ever-increasing demand for business and leisure travel without detrimental ecological impact - require a combined effort from both the public and private sectors. It's simply a challenge on a scale that both sectors are unable to tackle in isolation of each other.
But by pooling resources from both the public and private sectors, Clean Sky's modus operandi as a Joint Undertaking assures that pioneering research and conceptual development programmes are underpinned with an appropriate level of fiscal nurture to sustain them throughout the duration of the extended timescales that are typical in the aviation sector – it's a long-haul process.
This MO provides a path of viability to ensure that new products can transition through research, conceptualisation, design, development, testing, certification, manufacture and introduction into service within timelines that align with the needs of the end user (passengers), the operators (airlines and air traffic control infrastructure), industry (manufacturers and maintenance entities), and society at large (those people transported by, and impacted by, the presence of the air transport system). The Clean Sky initiative enables the front end of this long and complex process to thrive.
Today, Clean Sky's scale of operation, and the diligent and selective manner in which it has grown its collaborative network of more than 600 participants from 24 countries, underpins the realization of that vision for tomorrow's air transport system.
