EUROCONTROL to participate in half of SESAR’s selected research projects
Following the conclusion of the 2025 Digital European Sky Call, the SESAR Joint Undertaking has announced that EUROCONTROL will participate in 21 of the 42 selected Industrial Research and Exploratory Research projects, coordinating six projects and contributing to another 15.
This engagement reinforces EUROCONTROL’s commitment to the Digital European Sky (DES) programme. The DES programme supports the transition towards a green, climate-neutral, and digital European aviation ecosystem, whilst strengthening the competitiveness and resilience of the European aviation industry. The projects form a central part of EUROCONTROL’s innovation strategy under its Trajectory 2030 initiative, leveraging expertise from the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub, civil-military coordination, ATM architecture, sustainability, aviation intelligence, and the EUROCONTROL Network Manager, in collaboration with ANSPs, airports, airlines, higher-altitude platform operators, academia, and industry.
The six EUROCONTROL-led projects address key challenges in modernising air traffic management, including capacity, network resilience, greener trajectories, and integration of drones, space transport, and higher-altitude operations, using automation and AI. These include NET-TBO 2, ATC-TBO 2, SCAN, IRINA 2, APOLLO, and DiFeRent, focusing on trajectory management, CNS adaptation, RPAS integration, architecture development, and digital flight rules. The 15 projects EUROCONTROL contributes to cover areas such as airport operations, CNS infrastructure, environmental and climate services, wake energy retrieval, U-space, innovative air mobility, vertiports, and ATM performance assessment. The projects, supported by €254 million in EU funding, will run from mid-2026 until 2029.
Find out more below.
