Hamburg Aviation has joined a new EU-level project consortium designed to harmonize efforts around decarbonisation and improving the environmental footprint of the aviation industry. Niklas Schilling and Francine Schulz journeyed to Toulouse for a kick-off meeting for ECARE, a new project to help develop a European Clean Aviation Regional Ecosystem. The objective: find and exploit synergies between regional, national and European funding for sustainable aviation.

Funded through the EU Horizon programme, ECARE officially launched on 1 January 2023, running for two years. The project partners, including Hamburg Aviation, Aerospace Valley, Distretto Aerospaziale della Campania - DAC will make recommendations on how to make the most of synergies between the EU’s Clean Aviation fund and regional and national programmes like Germany’s Federal Aviation Resreach Programme (LuFo). The results of the studies across three countries – Germany, Italy and France – will then be available for replication throughout the aviation industry across the EU.

The initial phase of the programme will analyze funding programmes and supported projects in four regions (Hamburg, Occitania, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Campania). The team will then create a digital platform to host the results of ECARE, opening up easily accessible information on funding available for sustainable aviation projects and kick-start networking to launch new projects.

With a budget of €720,000, ECARE is supported by several organisations via ESG, the ECARE Stakeholders Group, including La Région Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée and Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine, the EEN South-West France network and several European aerospace clusters.

Find out more about ECARE here.