EREA members to adhere to the European Researcher Charter

On September 29, 2008, as many as 12 major aeronautical research organisations in Europe are going to sign up a letter addressed to the Science & Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik, materializing their common decision to adhere to the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and on a Code of Conduct for the Recruitement of Researchers. The letter will be handed over to the Commissioner who will be attending the signature ceremony. The presidents or general directors of the 12 members and associate members of the European Research Establishment in Aeronautics (EREA) association will be coming together to express their willingness to adhere to the Charter. Denis Maugars, ONERA President & CEO, and Fred Abbink, General Director of NLR, respectively Chairman and vice-Chairman of EREA, will be the final signatories of the adhesion letter. The initiative comes after EREA contributed to the debate on the new perspectives for the European Research Area and expressed its support to the charter. The signature of this adhesion letter is a recognition that, indeed, researchers are the most valuable assets of the EREA member organisations and therefore attractive careers and job conditions have to be offered to them. The Charter represents a common basis upon which these conditions can be built, at European scale, and therefore it should contribute to fostering mobility within and between the aeronautical research organisations members of EREA. The signature of this adhesion letter reflects also EREA intention to place itself as a prominent contributor to furthering ERA construction.

The EREA members are CIRA of Italy, DLR of Germany, FOI of Sweden, ILOT of Poland, INTA of Spain, NLR of the Netherlands, ONERA of France and VZLU of Czech Republic. Associate members are ARC of Austria, INCAS of Romania, VKI of Belgium and VTT of Finland.

The signature event is to take place in Rhode Saint Genèse near Brussels, at the premises of the Von Karman Institute VKI, one of the most recent associate members of EREA. VKI was named after the famous Hungarian/American engineer and physicist Theodore von Karman.EREA is the association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics, created in 1994 and established as an Association in 1999.
Link to the EREA web site www.erea.org/