Air Transport

The European Union's largest-ever research programme, the Seventh Framework (FP7), will not start its aeronautics studies before November at the earliest. Aeronautics research has a budget of €4.18 billion ($5.42 billion), out of FP7's €50.5 billion total for the seven years ending in 2013.

The first call for proposals for aeronautics for 2007 was announced in December 2006, under the heading "the greening of air transport". This targets reducing engine emissions by 80% and noise by 10PNdB.

The deadline for proposals is 3 May, but due to the evaluation process and negotiations between proposal partners, start dates could be a year away. "For Level 1 projects you might think about [starting in] November this year, but the beginning of next year might be more realistic," says German aerospace centre DLR's FP7 project manager Peter Bentzinger.