EU-wide Advantages and Opportunities for "Support to programme execution framework on performance" (HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-IR-02-WA7-1)

1. Single Market Access

- Pan-European ATM performance baseline: The grant explicitly targets an ECAC-wide (i.e. pan-European) performance view, immediately positioning beneficiaries to influence and benefit from a harmonised Air Traffic Management (ATM) market serving 450+ million citizens.

- First-mover advantage in a €140 bn aviation services market: By shaping the SESAR performance framework, consortia can set de-facto technical standards that downstream ANSPs, airports, drone operators and CNS/ATM suppliers must adopt, unlocking early commercialisation routes across all 27 Member States plus associated countries.

- Direct channel to EU institutional buyers: Results feed the European ATM Master Plan and Single European Sky (SES) regulatory processes, giving project partners privileged visibility vis-à-vis Eurocontrol, EASA, EUMETSAT and national authorities—reducing go-to-market friction compared with purely national R&D.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration

- Mandatory multinational consortia: Horizon-JU-CSA rules require at least three independent entities from three different eligible countries, catalysing durable industrial–academic–government networks.

- Interoperable simulation environments: Running integrated network simulations of multiple SESAR Solutions forces partners to federate modelling platforms (fast-time, real-time, digital twin) that would otherwise remain siloed—dramatically cutting duplication costs and increasing data richness.

- Access to EU Aviation Bodies: SESAR 3 JU, Eurocontrol’s Performance Review Unit (PRU) and the Network Manager provide domain expertise, live operational data and validation sites—the kind of cross-border assets no single Member State can mobilise alone.

3. EU Policy Alignment

- European Green Deal & Fit-for-55: Environmental impact assessment methodology maintenance links directly to EU targets of –55 % GHG by 2030; projects can embed contrail-avoiding trajectories, SAF uptake metrics and U-space sustainability KPIs, positioning results for CEF Transport and ETS innovation funding.

- Digital Europe & Europe’s Digital Decade 2030: The architecture modelling framework and data-driven performance dashboard support EU priorities on cloud, AI and data spaces—reinforced by the requirement to monitor digitalisation KPIs.

- Cybersecurity Act & NIS 2: Maintaining the (cyber)security assessment methodology ensures conformity with evolving EU legislation, creating commercial certification opportunities.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

- One-stop standardisation pathway: Deliverables feed directly into EASA rule-making tasks, Eurocae WG- groups and ICAO EUR documents, avoiding 27 divergent certification loops.

- Reduced compliance costs for industry: Consensus methodologies (safety, human performance, security) lower the cost of multi-country deployments of new ATM or U-space services by up to 30 % (SESAR 2020 close-out data).

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

- Link to KICs & KETs: Partners can tap into EIT Urban Mobility for U-space demonstrations, access Key Enabling Technologies pilot lines (e.g. AI chips for onboard detect-and-avoid) and exploit European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) resources for data sharing.

- Talent pipeline: Participation facilitates secondments through Erasmus+ mobility actions and MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships, ensuring a steady flow of skilled researchers.

6. Funding Synergies

- Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Transport: Results of network impact simulations can underpin CEF deployment projects (Wave 4 SESAR), accelerating market uptake with 50 % co-funding.

- Digital Europe Programme (DEP): Performance dashboards and data spaces can be scaled via DEP Digital Pilot projects.

- Regional Funds (ERDF/Just Transition): Airports and ANSPs in cohesion regions may leverage ERDF for pilot implementations aligned with validated SESAR Solutions.

- Synergy Bonus: Horizon rules permit cumulative, non-overlapping financing—partners can budget TRL 6–8 activities in CEF while TRL 3–5 research is covered by this CSA lump-sum.

7. Scale and Impact Potential

- ECAC-level performance consolidation: Delivering yearly programme reports and a final PAGAR gives stakeholders an authoritative benchmark that can drive EU-wide deployment decisions worth €3–4 bn in infrastructure upgrades.

- Foundation for Digital European Sky: The action acts as the performance “operating system” for upcoming large-scale demonstrations (LSDs) and flagship projects, de-risking investment and accelerating pan-European roll-out.

- Export multiplier: Harmonised EU performance standards become attractive to third countries (Gulf, ASEAN, Latin America), opening export markets for European ATM technology and services.

8. Strategic Value over National-Only Actions

- Critical mass of data: Only an EU-wide effort can collect statistically significant performance evidence across 30,000+ daily flights, providing a fidelity unachievable at national scale.

- System-of-systems coherence: The CSA ensures that isolated national innovations converge towards interoperable SESAR Solutions, preventing fragmentation and reducing overall societal cost.

- Political leverage: Embedding results in EU legislation (SES2+, TEN-T, the future Single European Drone Regulation) gives partners regulatory pull power that a national project cannot replicate.

9. Actionable Opportunities for Applicants

1. Lead the maintenance of reference methodologies to become the go-to EU performance authority—translating into future consultancy contracts with ANSPs and OEMs.

2. Propose an open, cloud-native performance data space aligned with GAIA-X to win DEP follow-up funding.

3. Integrate AI-driven trade-off analytics for KPIs (capacity vs. emissions vs. cost) to create a marketable decision-support tool for Network Manager and airlines.

4. Build a cross-sector cluster (ATM, U-space, cybersecurity, human factors) to maximise eligibility scoring on cross-disciplinarity and stakeholder breadth.

5. Design living labs in cohesion regions (e.g. Baltic, Western Balkans) to unlock ERDF co-financing and demonstrate tangible territorial impact.

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By leveraging the uniquely European scale, governance structures and policy instruments encapsulated in this Horizon-JU-CSA topic, consortia can not only propel SESAR performance management to the next level but also secure long-term strategic, commercial and environmental benefits that would be impossible to reach within the confines of any single Member State.