Promoting innovation potential from aerospace regions in Eastern Europe

At the ILA 2012 in Berlin, the members of the European Aerospace Cluster Partnership launched a new project: BEAWARE - Bridging East And West for Aerospace Research. 13 months later, on October 17, 2013, the kick-off meeting of the twelve partners was held in Tallinn, Estonia. Western European aerospace clusters will start to support the development of their counterparts in Eastern Europe.

Statistics show that up to 95% of project Coordinators under Framework Programmes have come from the Western European countries. Although the potential of aeronautical organisations from Eastern Europe is much bigger, the majority of them are not yet in a position to move from a regionally organised supply chain to a Europe-wide value creation chain, either because they lack of funds or because they are not aware about the needs and requirements. This is the reason, why BEAWARE was launched.

The BEAWARE project has set an objective to support potential coordinators and potential partners from Eastern European countries while identifying future R&D project opportunities in the field of Aeronautics and Air Transport within the frame of Horizon 2020. The largest network of aerospace clusters in Europe - the European Aerospace Cluster Partnership (EACP) will now push innovation through building cooperation ties between aerospace cluster managers in East and West.

The BEAWARE consortium lead by innovation bureau Invent Baltics, connects leading aerospace clusters (Aerospace Valley, Farnborough Aerospace Consortium, Hamburg Aviation, Helice, Moravian Aerospace Cluster and Pôle Pégase), regional associations and agencies (Association of Polish Aviation Industry, Agency for the Promotion of European Research) and aerospace strongholds (National Institute for Aerospace Research, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University and Zilinska University).

In order to facilitate the entry into supply chains for Eastern European aerospace actors, well-focused workshops in various technology areas together with factory tours to major aerospace hotspots in France, Italy, and Germany (Marseille - Toulouse - Torino - Apulia – Hamburg - Berlin) will be organized. Through hands-on support by mentors and experts, potential new market entries and new/innovative product suppliers will be identified.

To enter new players and to introduce new technologies in the supply chain takes usually at least 2 years. As a result, innovation chains based on Key Enabling Technologies will be structured. Beyond this, Eastern European aerospace clusters are encouraged to join EACP in future.