SESAR Joint Undertaking is setting-up a new Scientific Committee to reinforce its innovative and scientific approach to building the future Air Traffic Management systems and procedures. An astronaut, Professors, Researchers are now part of SESAR demonstrating the strong involvement of the Scientific Community to guarantee high level academic contribution to the SESAR programme.

The SESAR Joint Undertaking is going to revolutionise air traffic management in Europe. Unless these efforts deliver their results on time, the European Air Traffic Management system will be unable to face the projected growth of air traffic. By 2020, SESAR aims to create the capability to handle a threefold increase in air traffic in Europe, while improving safety by a factor of ten and reducing by 10% the environmental impact per flight. This modernised air traffic management system in Europe should also cut ATM-related expenses by half.

New SESAR Scientific Committee

The Committee will deal with all scientific aspects of the work programme and will focus on:

• the scientific analysis of SESAR from different angles: economics, human factors, statistics, mathematics, computer science, physics, technology;
• the liaison between SESAR and the academic and scientific communities across Europe including education of the future SESAR interested engineers & scientists and
• the scientific value of the SESAR results.

12 European scientific personalities: an astronaut, professors, researchers...

... are part of the SESAR Scientific Committee:

1. Prof. Philippe Baptiste, Director of the Computer Science Lab LIX of Ecole Polytechnique - France
2. Prof. Ricky Curran - Chair of Aerospace Management and Operations - Delft University of Technology
3. Mr. Frank De Winne - Astronaut & Chairman of the Forum Space and Education - European Space Agency
4. Prof. Dr. Peter Hecker - Professor and Managing Director of the "Institute of Flight Guidance" - Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig
5. Prof. Erik Hollnagel - Professor & Industrial Safety Chair - MINES Paris Tech – CRC
6. Prof. Alain Jeunemaitre - Director of Research - Ecole Polytechnique France & University of Oxford
7. Prof. Christopher Johnson - Professor of Computing Science - University of Glasgow
8. Prof. Georges Kallos - Head of the Division of Environmental Physics - Meteorology - University of Athens
9. Prof. Pierfrancesco Lombardo - Professor Dept. INFOCOM - University of Rome "La Sapienza"
10. Prof. Francisco Javier Mancebo Cortès - Professor & Subdirector of Economic Matters / Industrial Engineering-Aeronautics - Polytechnic University of Madrid
11. Prof. Lena Martensson - Professor in work science (human factors) - Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
12. Prof. Vojin Tosic - Professor & Head of Air Transport Department, University of Belgrade

"Having these personalities on-board will enable SESAR to build on sound scientific foundations. Thanks to the contribution of the Scientific Committee, SESAR JU will establish strong links with academic institutions conducting applied research of relevance to us. We strive for an innovative approach at SESAR and the input of the Scientific Committee will stimulate the technologists and engineers to think out of the box and deliver breakthroughs in ATM research." commented Patrick Ky, Executive Director of the SESAR Joint Undertaking. The SESAR new components and operational procedures will be gradually implemented as from 2012 till 2020.