On 16 October 2017, a delegation of EUROCONTROL led by Director General Dr. Frank Brenner is visiting the University Politehnica of Bucharest at the invitation of our Rector, Mr. Mihnea Costoiu. At 1 pm in the Senate Room the Cooperation Agreement will be signed between EUROCONTROL and the University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. At the signing ceremony, faculty students and professors are invited.

EUROCONTROL is an intergovernmental organisation with 41 Member and 2 Comprehensive Agreement States, where over 1,900 highly qualified professionals in Air Traffic Management (ATM) are working. The headquarters is in Brussels, Belgium. Also the Experimental Center in Bretigny, France, the Maastricht Upper Area Control Center in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and the Institute of Air Navigation Services in Luxembourg belong to EUROCONTROL.

By this agreement, the parties express their common interest to ensure the training of high-level professionals to support the development of the European air transport industry and in particular of the air traffic management sector. The parties wish to establish enhanced cooperation in research and development in the air transport sector, in the interests of safety and efficiency of the civil aviation sector. The aim is to improve the quality of the aerospace engineering human resources (work force) by motivating engineers as well as current and prospective students in this field, with a special focus on the practical side of Air Traffic Management (ATM), and raise awareness of the EUROCONTROL activities within R&D whilst at the same time support these activities with academic knowledge with the aim to foster innovation in the ATM domain. To achieve this purpose, the parties may jointly undertake, within the limits of their respective competences, cooperative activities which may include the following:

• exchange of data on projects of common interest;
• explore opportunities for UPB-FAE students to participate in the EUROCONTROL Agency Traineeship Programme in accordance with the EUROCONTROL Agency Traineeship Programme Rules and the related selection procedure;
• obtain access to EUROCONTROL tools for UPB-FAE students and/or academic staff to use such tools as part of projects of common interest for the Parties and/or to identify opportunities for improvement of such tools;
• identify topics of interest to EUROCONTROL for UPB-FAE 4^th year undergraduate and 2^nd year master students to address in their final (diploma) project, with co-supervision from EUROCONTROL staff;
• identify research topics of interest to EUROCONTROL to be pursued by UPB-FAE academic staff, with direct involvement from UPB-FAE students;
• make available to EUROCONTROL the results of the research projects pursued by UPB-FAE students and academic staff which are based on EUROCONTROL data and/or tools;
• consider EUROCONTROL’s expert opinion in the discussion on the changes to the curriculum and syllabus for aerospace engineers at UPB-FAE;
• identify funding opportunities for the Parties as a consortium, including national and European funds, research programs, infrastructure programs, and personnel training programs;
• encourage the participation of UPB-FAE students to EUROCONTROL study trips and to EUROCONTROL-organised conferences (ICRAT, SIDs, ATM Seminar) and events, especially to disseminate the results of their usage of EUROCONTROL data and tools.

Readers are reminded that the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering has a numerous and prestigious corps of Alumni working for EUROCONTROL. With their support and that of ROMATSA, in 2009 the Department of Aerospace Sciences ”Elie Carafoli” started a new program of studies taught in English, Air Navigation, aligned with the ICAO strategy for the Next Generation of Aviation Professionals ICAO-NGAP and specifically adapted to the need of engineers in the future computerized systems of air traffic management. EUROCONTROL through its Maastricht Center is leading the research, development and deployment of the new technologies. At the Maastricht Upper Aerea Control (MUAC), for the control of approximately 1.5 mil. flights per year, 280 air traffic controllers and 156 engineers work together, illustrating the growth of the importance of engineers in the future air traffic control systems. We are pleased that Romanian engineers, educated at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering add their contribution to this leading edge field. Even our intern students who are sent out to EUROCONTROL have remarkable results. For instance, in 2017, the 3rd Year merit scholarship Air Navigation student, George Cristian Simion, was an intern for 3 months at MUAC, creating a tool for air traffic management, which was highly regarded by experts there. Eng. Peter HENDRICKX, Director ATS ENGINEERING / ATM Systems expressed congratulations to UPB-FAE, mentioning that ”We will remember him for long, as I anticipate that his tool will be used daily by our system experts for long…. For us, he graduates his internship “Cum Laude”. Thanks once again to give us your excellent Students.” Among our students who were interns at Maastricht in the past, we mention Eng. Georgiana Ursachi, MAEng (ROMATSA), Eng. PhD student Barna Istvan Jakab, MAEng (Premium Aerotech), Eng. Andrei Mihai Dobre MAEng, (Blue Air), Eng. Bogdan Burtescu, MAEng (JLG), Eng. Monica Popa (contractor at EUROCONTROL MUAC), Eng. Bogdan Danciu (top of the class UPB-FAE 2017, master student at ETH Zürich), Eng. Radu Alexa. All of them contributed to this outstanding impression, which the Romanian aerospace engineering school made on EUROCONTROL, and consequently leading to this historic agreement. It is an international recognition of the performance of our school, given by one of the most respected organizations in world aviation.