Workshop on Education and Training of Engineers and Researchers in Aeronautics "Bridging the gap between policy, industry and academia" with special reference to successful current experiences of industry and universities partnerships. On Thursday, 14 th February 2013 At the World ATM Congress 2013 Organized by CANSO and ATCA, Madrid, SPAIN, IFEMA, Feria de Madrid.
Workshop Objectives: Nowadays aeronautics plays a fundamental role in facilitating economic growth and social inclusion, providing revenues to otherwise isolated regions and helping people to enlarge their horizons. In particular, Aeronautics and air transport are key drivers of European cohesion and competitiveness, representing 220 billions of Euros and providing 4,5 million of jobs in Europe, a figure that should double by 2020. However, the aeronautics and air transport system is directly and strongly affected by new challenges in terms of its competitiveness, performance and sustainability. The air industry is being affected by globalization, difficulties in accessing finance, new competitors arising (like Brazil, Canada, China, India and Russia), new markets and a permanent need for innovation. As mentioned in the Report Flightpath 2050, sustainable mobility is at stake, as are millions of jobs and billions of Euros of added value. Research and innovation are key to maintaining the sector's capacities and competitiveness and it is time to align efforts towards a new long-term vision for this sector. Universities, government and industry partners are call to combine efforts to bridge the current gap between academia an aviation industry. The World ATM Congress 2013 forum offers an advantageous opportunity to bring Policy makers, Industry and Academia closer and having productive discussion about the current needs of industry in terms of Competent Manpower, technology transfer and innovation and how Academia can help them to bring desired skill set, generating opportunities where they can work for mutual benefits. Specifically this workshop intends to explore the lessons to be learned from current successful partnership initiatives between industry, universities and policy makers all around the world. The organization of this workshop pretends to help interested stakeholders on getting a better understanding of: - the current status of cooperation between Academia and Industry, - the reason behind the gap between Academia and Industry, - the consequences of the gap, and - what can be done to close the gap. This Workshop is organized by the UPM and supported by: CANSO ATCA HALA! SESAR Research Network
Programme The workshop will start at 10:00 and it is programmed to last until 13:00. The workshop is organized as an optimized roundtable discussion where: key speakers, representing the views of @Policy makers, @Industry and @Academia, the expectations and areas of concern of the different stakeholders; and representatives of current successful partnership initiatives between industry, universities and policy makers all around the world, will brief about their achievements and the lessons learned. The workshop is will conducted and moderated by a key person with a professional trajectory that embodies the idea of bridge between industry and university. Each speaker will have a turn of 20 minutes to present his/her views. After the presentations, turn for discussion will be open in order to identify effective ways to combine efforts and bridge the current gap between academia an aviation industry. The workshop will count with the participation of the following representatives from policy, academia and industry worlds. Welcome by: Francisco Sáez Head Professor of Air navigation and ATM, UPM (Ex- Manager of Air Traffic Services in the Spanish Airspace-DGAC, Ex- General Manager for Spanish Air Traffic Controllers School) Chairman: Rosa Arnaldo Lecturer of Air Navigation and ATM, UPM (President of the Spanish Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission) 1 Presentation: Expectation and Areas of Concern @Policy makers 1 Presentation: Expectation and Areas of Concern @Industry 2 Presentations: Expectation and Areas of Concern @University 2 Presentations: Successful partnerships experiences Round Table with all keynote speakers
Background information. When facing this problem each agent has its own expectation and areas of concerns. Expectation and Areas of Concern @Policy makers From its early days at the beginning of the 20th century till today the aerospace sector has required a highly educated and innovative work force 1. In the ongoing demographic trend the sector is competing with other sectors and requires a quantitative and qualitative employment preparation and forecast. In the last three decades aeronautics industry employment felt a concentration of age structures in the middle age, with mostly employees between 35-50 years old. Decreased recruitment rates of young persons, in part also related to longer education periods and more frequent use of early retirement schemes, has enlarged the weight of the middle age employees. At the same time statistics show a declining interest of young people for engineering. As this sector operates in a long-term perspective of 20 to 30 years, the actual policy framework which is being implemented today and the assigned resources will shape and determine the performance and success of this industry for decades to come. Over the last six years, there have been general curriculum reforms at different levels of education in more than half of the European countries. These reforms have also obviously affected science curricula; the main driver for reform in many countries has been a desire to embrace the European key competences approach. In this context, countries have made efforts to integrate more context-based issues and hands-on activities into science curricula. The reforms in various countries where science skills were re-focused in line with key competences illustrate the desire of policy makers to raise the importance of science. Expectation and Areas of Concern @Industry Two mayor areas of concern characterize the approach of aeronautical industry towards academia and universities. The first one is the current need of industry in term of Competent Manpower and how Academia can help them to bring desired skill set. As stated by ACARE Human Resource Group Aeronautics Industry has a need for people with high skills to stand the global competition (technologies, innovation, competitiveness); people with soft skills beside their engineering skills (languages, intercultural knowledge, etc...) and people trained for the operation aspects (MRO, airlines, etc...). The aeronautic domain is constrained by the need of highly educated and innovative work force and universities can hardly meet this needs. More over the demographic change in association with lower proportions of qualified young people who are embracing for mathematics, physics and engineering studies and careers is a major concern for the aeronautic industrial. The second one is the lack interrelationship between both worlds, industry and academia, as seen from the side of industry. Most Industrial Users are driven by their vendors and the IT media (newspapers and magazines). Industrial participation in academic conferences has been declining for years and most of the times industry feels that there is little it can learn from academia especially in the fields of Air Traffic Management. In general Industrial managers and 1. According to Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) data from the 2007 Report, 35% of jobs in aeronautics (including civil and defence) are highly skilled jobs (engineers, managers) and 32% of employees received an education below university level (technicians, draughtsman, craftsmen, secretaries, etc.), but most of the workers have been trained at the highest level.
Operational personnel do not access academic journals, and are not aware of what academia have to offer. Industry managers distrust academicians, they believe they only want to experiment at their expense. In general there is no mobility of knowledge, expertise or workforce between both worlds. Expectation and Areas of Concern @University Some universities and academic institutions may suffer a certain degree of lack of understanding for industry specific content and if training to cope with industry needs may be involved in constant learning and updating knowledge process for a changing environment and market realities. Other institutions are overly focused on theoretical knowledge and sometimes not conversant with practical knowledge. All of them are facing the challenge of how to bring the industry desired skill set without and explore the possibilities of having more customized curriculum as per the need industry while preserving core knowledge. Additionally some academic institutions have difficulties to connect with the industrial world. Academics are driven by their conferences and technical journals and their need to publish, they seldom attend industrial conferences as they feel this is below their standard, they looks down industrial newspaper and magazines, they are not aware of the problems and constrains of industry, etc... In summary academics and Industrialists have a different mindset, they are living in different worlds and pursuing different goals. The Academic is striving for recognition from his peers while the Industrialist is striving to survive. Expectation and Areas of Concern @Students Students are also part of the equation, and their expectation especially when they are unrealistic regarding current labor market conditions (salary, position, mobility, sufficiently of a degree to get him a job,...) constitute additional barriers for a better integration of both worlds.