The Hamburg Centre of Aviation Training - Lab (HCAT+) is the development platform for future-oriented education and training in the civil aviation industry of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, which is the third largest location in the industry worldwide with more than 40,000 employees.

As a public-private partnership, HCAT+ supports, coordinates and develops aerospace education projects. The association is an instrument to the Hamburg
Ministry for Economy, Transport and Innovation and acts as moderator of the pillar "personnel and qualification" in the aviation cluster Hamburg Aviation. Its work mainly supports SMEs, but is also aimed at such heterogeneous target groups as pupils, students, teachers, aviation technicians or large companies.

The focus of HCAT+, its members and partners is always the future qualification and structural challenges of the aviation industry as well as the location, education and innovation policy goals of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. First and foremost, HCAT+ supports projects that are useful for its partners as part of a higher-level knowledge or competence preservation or enhancement, but which would not be achievable without a joint development platform.