European Union Transnational R&I Aviation Funding: An AirTN Case Study

One of the main objectives of the European Commission (EC) since the 70s has been to coordinate research policies and to enhance the transnational cooperation in order to reach efficiency in terms of funding and to match with Europe’s economic ambitions. It has been addressed through a centralized approach managed by the EC and a decentralized approach through the cooperation of member states. Regarding the aviation sector, the centralized financing has been successfully implemented under the EU Research & Innovation Framework Programmes, while the decentralized approach has been less successful through the initiative Air Transport Net (AirTN) ERA-NET. The intention of this paper is to analyse the AirTN case study and its methodology to launch transnational calls, the results, and the reasons why it was not completely successful. Following the identification of these main barriers, we provide a list of suggestions that could have been implemented for a more successful outcome.


Introduction
The idea of the transnational research and innovation funding was proposed by the EC for the first time in 1972 [1] and it was based on two dimensions: the coordination of national research policies and the cooperation of Member States.
The implementation was approached gradually and led to the adoption of the first EU research and development Framework Programme (FP) for Community research in 1983 [2].The main aim of the FP was to define the objectives, areas and topics on which research cooperation could be funded at 2 The EC identified the aerospace sector as essential for the economic recovery and following ERA directives, the first European Technology Platform (ETP) [5] was created in aeronautics in 2001, called "Advisory Council for Aeronautic Research in Europe" (ACARE).
Based on the high-level report "the European Aeronautics: A Vision for 2020", ACARE published the first version of its Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) in 2002 [6].It intended mainly to focus on one of the guidelines set out by the ERA: to define the future technology needs of aeronautics and by this influence in the definition of the aeronautics work programme of the Research and Technological Development Framework Programmes FP6 (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006) and later of FP7 (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) to address a right technological investment in aeronautics, and also to guide and coordinate national research agendas.
The EC addressed mainly two different approaches for transnational research and innovation (R&I) funding for aviation.They have been named as centralized and decentralized financing.
The first approach, centralized financing, is managed by the EC [4], mainly through the EU Framework Programmes, which cover all sectors including aviation.There is a transnational cooperation financed centrally by the EU through the European Commission.But there is not a coordination of the national funding.Therefore, we call it centralized financing.
The second approach, the decentralized financing for aviation has been mainly addressed by an ERAnetwork (ERA-NET) in aeronautics, called Air Transport Network (AirTN) [7].It implies the alignment of national funded programmes of the Member States.Therefore, we call this decentralized financing.
Under the Framework Programmes FP6, FP7 and H2020, the ERA-NET instrument aimed to achieve the objective of coordinating national and regional research and development programmes [8] through three specific actions: • 'ERA-NET actions' (FP6 and FP7) -providing a framework for actors implementing public research programmes to coordinate their national and regional activities.
• 'ERA-NET Plus actions' under FP7 to materialize the transnational coordination providing additional EU financial support to co-fund a single joint call between national and/or regional programmes for transnational proposals.
• Under Horizon 2020, both era-net and era-net plus actions disappeared, and they were substituted by the ERA-NET Cofund, with the same philosophy of an ERA-NET Plus but going one step forward to co-fund, besides a single joint call, other joint activities including joint calls for transnational proposals without an EU co-funding.
For civil aeronautics already since 1973 the "Group for Aeronautical Research and Technology in Europe" (GARTEUR), exists as a network of today seven countries, which implements transnational projects supported by national resources without cross-border funding.Based on the GARTEUR experience [9], the Member States of this aviation community together with the EC decided to try to expand this success case to more European countries using the ERA-NET instrument.In 2007 the ERA-NET, called AirTN was launched for the specific case of aviation [7].It was the first case study for transnational funding under the decentralized approach, looking for the coordination of research policies was launched under FP6 and FP7.
The problems related to the difficulties in synchronizing national calls, the differences in processes and approaches, and the few countries willing to participate, made the EC and AirTN members to finally decide not to go for this initiative in 2016, nearly 10 years after its launch.
The intention of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of the national funding programmes, the AirTN methodology to launch transnational calls, the results, and the reasons why it was not completely a success.
Following the identification of these main barriers, we provide a list of suggestions that could have been implemented for a more successful outcome.

Methodology
The methodology used to evaluate the decentralized transnational cooperation strategies for R&I in aviation is based on a sample of 18 EU Member States and associated countries (which are chosen by their capacities in aviation technologies.It is based on the following aspects (see Fig. 1): • Information of national funding programmes and calls.o Analysis of website information.

Results
The attempt and effort to align national aviation funding programmes took place in several steps: The results of the first survey launched in 2008 by AirTN to 18 policy/programme owners of Member States showed that most of countries of the sample funded aeronautics research projects, but the characteristics of the funding mechanisms did vary.Some were targeted on a sectoral basis and had a thematic focus, others encouraged research across sectoral boundaries.
The funding schemes within the Member States of AirTN could generally be divided into three categories (see Table 1 for an overview of frequency of the used schemes): • Type A: Ministries/agencies having a coordinated programme specifically dedicated to aeronautics.
• Type B: Ministries/agencies not having a specific programme dedicated to aeronautics but having programmes including the topic aeronautics.
• Type C: Ministries/agencies not having a specific funding research programme, but have aeronautic related projects funded by various means.The study showed that the research establishments were the biggest target group receiving funding with the 39%, followed closely by the industry with the 37%.But universities were also addressed in a substantial number of AirTN Member States with a 24%.
Regarding the way of supporting entities, the grants were the most common form (69%).However, some countries also provided loans or loans as supplementary funds (17%).Other support mechanisms included fiscal incentives, venture capital funds, repayable launch investment, etc. (14%).
Most of the programmes had public calls with fixed deadlines (54%); however, some countries used the open call system (38%).The remaining 8% was related to those Member States that did not yet know the characteristics of their calls at the time of answering the survey.
The selection procedure for proposals was predominantly organised in a single stage process based on a full proposal (71%).In some programmes applicants were offered the option to present/discuss their proposal.A few programmes had a two stages selection procedure (29%), i.e. the applicant first submits the project idea in form of a short/draft proposal, then -if the proposal is positively evaluated -a full proposal has to be submitted.
Step 2: The next step was to launch a joint transnational call, but due to the different timing of programmes, different types of funding scheme and the requested commitment to participate in the activity, only four countries were willing to take the opportunity of the parallel timing of their national calls to stimulate transnational projects: Austria, Ireland, Spain, and Sweden.
Countries involved in the coordinated call agreed on a common workable framework to match their programme timelines, considering the legal constrains (minimum time required by national law for each phase of the call), operational constrains of programme managers (minimum time required for performing each of the single tasks), national programme schedules, expected number of proposals, and timing of the funding decision.
The proposal submissions, as it is shown in Fig. 2, were implemented by a common proposal of the project partners (filling in a proposal form including all important information of the proposal) submitted by the consortium coordinator to the central AirTN call secretariat.In parallel, and with the same submission deadline, an additional proposal was required by national agencies/ministries and had to be submitted to the respective national agencies/ministries according to their rules within the same time limit.• a second decentralized evaluation was carried out by national programmes who had the final decision.
There were four proposals submitted.All four had Spanish and Swedish participations, and one of them had an Austrian participation.These results showed that totally thirteen partners were involved (5 Spanish, 7 Swedish and 1 Austrian) with a total budget of 4.664.766€.
Two of the submitted proposals had a positive evaluation by both, the AirTN secretariat and the funding agencies involved, with a total budget of around two million €, involving entities from Spain, Austria, and Sweden.
Step 3: Considering that it was the first attempt, this was considered as a relative success by participating countries and entities.During an internal AirTN management meeting in September 2012 [7], most of the countries agreed that this was enough to demonstrate that an ERA-NET Plus was feasible.Therefore, an ERA-NET Plus should be launched for aviation by the EC as soon as possible, as it would give national programmes a framework for launching the coordinated calls with an EC top up funding to complement the national one, which would make it much more interesting for participating entities.The EC representative participating in this meeting considered, that it was not enough to decide, whether an ERA-NET Plus would be feasible in the aviation sector, because of the limited participation of Member States in call launched before.
The final output of the meeting was that a second coordinated call should be launched in order to involve more Member States.A new survey was needed in 2013 to update the information about national funding programmes, and also within AirTN to assess the Member States`willingness to participate.
Only one additional country decided to come onboard and participate in the call.Austria, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Sweden were ready to take the opportunity to stimulate transnational projects.
With the same approach as for the previous coordinated call, the second one was launched in 2013.Four submitted proposals got the AirTN quality label.However, only one project was finally funded based on the decisions of the national programme owners.The successful proposal involved partners from Spain and Sweden with a total budget of around two million Euro.
At that time, the AirTN 2 project was already in its final phase and did not have sufficient good results for attracting more countries for the implementation of joint activities.Before knowing the results of the second coordinated call, the ACARE MSG and the EC decided that the implementation of ERA objectives for aviation was a necessity, and a new network project was funded by the EC: AirTN Next Gen started at the end of 2013.
Step 4: In 2015, a new survey in 19 Member States and Associated Countries (sample of 18 used in the first surveys and Croatia) was launched to update the information about national funding programmes and strategies.Its ultimate objective was to demonstrate that and an ERA-NET Cofund was possible under the new Framework Programme Horizon 2020.
The survey results showed that in eight countries an aviation research strategy was stated.About 70% of the participating countries had a national funding programme or a programme like-activity.As it came out already in 2008, it was found that the funding schemes varied across the participating countries and followed the same categories (Type A, B and C) as described previously; we obtain the Table 2. Comparing the results of this survey with the first one made in 2008, it was concluded that the funding programme and strategies for aviation in the Member States had a continuity, because several years later most of them had a similar approach regarding call timing, strategies, eligible applicants, topics, type of supporting measures and budget.
Regarding the willingness of participating in a third coordinated joint call, only four countries (Austria, Germany, Spain, and Sweden) expressed their interest to be involved.For the others, the main reasons for not participating were the difficulties in synchronising national calls, the differences in process and approaches of the national programmes.Another main reason was the limited success in the joint calls already launched under AirTN due to the missing readiness of the EC and of the Member States to launch an ERA-NET Plus for aviation.
During the workshop held in Bratislava in 2016 [7], the next steps were discussed.Several participating countries expressed their view that an ERA-NET Cofund would be a good support for them to convince their authorities to participate in coordinated calls, because to ERA-NET Cofund instrument would support the call with an EC top up funding for the participants.Despite this view, the EC representative, who also participated in the workshop, concluded after analysing the results of previous AirTN calls, that the missing readiness of many Member States as expressed in the survey and the limitation of the coordination would lead to a failure of any co-funding initiative and therefore it should not be launched.
After this, the effort of the new AirTN Next Gen project addressed mainly the second objective of ERA mentioned in this article: to find out ways of creating synergies in aviation between Horizon 2020 and national/regional funding, mainly using amongs others the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), and as a long-term consequence how to get a related policy influence and the alignment of policies.It was decided that a cooperation with the public-private partnership Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking would be the best approach to start a pilot case.This approach was supported by AirTN Next Gen, the ACARE MSG and the Clean Sky 2 States Representatives` Group.

Conclusion
After analysing different national funding programmes, it was confirmed that there was a large discrepancy of the financial instruments and the national aeronautics R&I programmes between Member States.The discrepancy was related in terms of capabilities, national industrial interests, competitiveness, capacity to cooperate, regulations and timeframes of calls.
Although one of the priority goals of ERA was the alignment of national funding programmes, we found too many barriers to implement it within the aviation sector at policy level.
The by far highest barrier for a transnational cooperation using national funding programmes was a missing dedicated aviation R&I policy in some countries.It is true that in several of these countries a strategic framework and/or policy for R&I existed, which contained references to aeronautics but not strongly enough to figure aeronautics as its own topic.A possibly feasible solution would be for the aviation elements to be drawn out from the general R&I strategy and to be elaborated in the context of market and societal needs, national resources available and potential benefits to be gained from transnational collaboration.
The second most prevalent barrier was the lack of aviation R&I funding programmes that could allow the transnational cooperation.Without it, there is not much room to translate policy objectives into strategy.This could be addressed by establishing specific programmes, or modify existing programmes, to enable such a cooperation and thus facilitate the participation of foreign partners, whose expertise can help to fill knowledge gaps.
The proposed solution, as planned by AirTN, would have been the use of national funding programmes for launching coordinated transnational calls, but as we detailed in this article, only with many barriers.
After the identification of these main barriers, a list of different issues is provided below (not in a particular order).They affect transnational cooperation in aviation R&I, and for each a suggestion is given for feasible solutions: • Where co-funded collaborative projects do exist, a barrier is that partners are funded by different agencies, most with differing programme rules and timelines of project management criteria.Resulting from such differences in programme intricacies, it can be easy for funding to be discontinued in one country and another, or for a project proposal to simply fall foul of deadlines and subsequently be cancelled.As a solution, R&I funding agencies could coordinate their timelines for calls, reporting documents, and possibly even their monitoring and evaluation techniques.At the very least, working together at proposal development stage to check on differences in funding rules and regulations to be aware that solutions will be required.This will help avoiding any surprises later on in the implementation process.
• A physical issue deemed to be prevalent in restricting transnational cooperation in aviation R&I are geography -the distance and language of two countries.A limited solution, to work around the issue over the longer term, would be the building of political and economic relationships with the aim of working towards collaborative efforts in the field of R&I.
• There was nearly no added value for entities to participate in coordinated calls, because the participants had to deal before with many administrative burdens and problems detailed but receiving finally the same funding as if they apply in an individual way to their national calls.A solution for that could be to improve the financial conditions in the coordinated call, making the call much more attractive, for example through an EC top up funding coming from the implementation of an ERA-NET Plus/Cofund.
We have seen that the process for demonstrating its feasibility got unfortunately long in time, and the essence and the interest of countries and the EC was diluted.The lack of willingness of Member States expressed in the survey and the problems of coordination during the transnational pilot activities brought the use of an ERA-NET Plus/Cofund to a failure.However, we have already seen the success of the implementation of ERA-NET Plus under FP7 and of ERA-NET Cofund under H2020 in other sectors close to aviation such as road transport.
Even not being highly successful in the implementation of joint calls, taking also into account other cases such as the road transport, we conclude that if the European Commission had launched an aviation ERA-NET Plus/Cofund with an EC top up funding, the inertia of some countries joining the instrument would have attracted other countries and created motivation to come onboard participate in a successful joint call, which would have allowed the alignment of national funding programmes.
This study shows also a positive outcome: AirTN, ACARE MSG and the EC have set up a network of EU Member States working together for the implementation of aviation joint activities with excellent exchange of information regarding national and European strategies, policies and programmes which can be considered a great hit addressing ERA goals.On the one hand, a better understanding about policies and funding programmes and calls have been addressed, on the other hand the ACARE Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) has permeated throughout some national aviation strategies who has been setting up their own national SRIA mirroring the European one, being a good example of the European influence.

Stage 1 • 2 • 3 • 5 •
Understand the process of coordinated calls between countries, critical success cases, from literature • Identify the status of countries with national funding programmes supporting aviation • Select the framework of reference Stage Sample selection of countries with funding programmes supporting aviation • Data collection Stage Analyze the findings and make sense of data • Launch of coordinated calls Stage 4 • Analyze aviation coordinated calls procedures and resultsStage Proposals to improve coordination between Member States

Table 1 .
Frequency of funding schemes for aviation.Survey 2008.

Table 2 .
Frequency of funding schemes for aviation.Survey 2015.