Vassilis Agouridas, Lisa van der Heijden, Arthur Dallau, Nathy Ercol
30 March 2022
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, 30 March 2022 – Vassilis Agouridas, Head of UIC2 of the EU’s Smart Cities Marketplace and Head of EU Public Co-Creation & Ecosystem Outreach at Airbus, hosted a panel at Amsterdam Drone Week to discuss the topic 'Integrating the EU Funded Projects on Urban Air Mobility (UAM)', and to announce the launch of the EU UAM Projects & Initiatives Community – a platform that aims to facilitate the development of an integrated European UAM ecosystem.
Joining him were Miguel Martí Vidal, Aviation Project Manager at CINEA (European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency), and representatives of the other initiating parties of the newly established community: Arthur Dallau, Impact Coordinator at FF2020, Petri Mononen of AiRMOUR, Sandra Melo of ASSURED-UAM and Silvio Semanjski of AURORA.
The primary purpose of the EU UAM Projects & Initiatives Community is to support the European Commission by bringing together local, national and EU-funded projects, along with initiatives and regulatory bodies focusing on Urban Air Mobility, to cross-share knowledge and lessons learnt. Additionally, the community seeks to involve local authorities from cities and regions, organisations from the public and private sector, knowledge institutions and research and development entities from all over Europe.
To embrace and accelerate these developments, Horizon 2020 projects managed by CINEA, namely, AiRMOUR, ASSURED-UAM, AURORA and FF2020, together with the UIC2 of the EU’s Smart Cities Marketplace, launched the EU UAM Projects & Initiatives Community and gathered support from projects under H2020, SESAR Joint Undertaking and the CIVITAS umbrella.
By leading an ecosystem of cross-sectoral stakeholders, the EU UAM Projects & Initiatives Community aims to foster the advancement of European urban aviation, mobility and digital infrastructure in support of the EU’s Green Deal and Digital Agenda. These are two outstanding examples of policies and objectives that illustrate the benefits and impact of Urban Air Mobility – creating a sustainable and responsible, digital Europe with, at its core, European values and providing the best possible service to and for all citizens.
The EU UAM Projects & Initiatives Community calls for interested projects and initiatives at European, national and local levels to become part of the UAM ecosystem and to participate in the first community webinar on 20 April 2022, where they will have the opportunity to discuss new possible areas of collaboration and their vision for the future UAM ecosystem, as well as the type of institutional leadership and support that is necessary to make this European community a success.
To join the community and for further details, please contact:
Vassilis Agouridas, UIC2: vassilis.agouridas@airbus.com
Arthur Dallau and Lisa van der Heijden, FF2020: lisa@digie.expert
Click here to view the statement and the supporting projects on the Amsterdam Drone Week website.