During its second year (June 2024 – May 2025), Engage 2 has successfully delivered its activities on time. The wiki was migrated to a more user-friendly platform with regularly updated content, and the matchmaking app was developed and opened to real users for consolidation testing. Contracts were finalised with 7 PhD candidates and 7 catalyst fund projects, and a new initiative was launched to support MSc students with mentoring and career guidance, with 4 students already benefiting. Financial support was also provided to both PhD and MSc students for participation in relevant events.
In Year 2, the project organised its first winter school in Belgrade, the first hackathon, and the first thematic workshop on new entrants, alongside five other cross-fertilisation/flagship workshops and a panel on career pathways and inspirational tours.
Technical work on future skills and competencies continued, with the Skill Transformation Map and Recommendations on Pathways for Skills and Career Development submitted to S3JU.
Engage 2 also promoted its activities across the ATM and aviation community at major events such as the SESAR Annual Conference 2025, EASN Conference 2024, SIDs 2024, ASW 2025, and the European Researchers’ Night, using job cards and videos to highlight career opportunities in aviation. Finally, collaboration was started or reinforced with CANSO, AviAll, Women in Aviation, GAAST, Festival della Scienza, Fox ATM.
During Year 3, Engage 2 completed all tasks on schedule. The project’s wiki platform was continuously enriched with technical content, and its management was transitioned from Innaxis to Deep Blue to ensure continuity. Concurrently, the matchmaking application underwent extensive consolidation testing and became officially available for download on both the Google Play and Apple App Stores.
In terms of research and mentoring, the project monitored its 7 PhDs and finalized the 7 catalyst fund projects from Wave 1. All research beneficiaries delivered their first technical reports, which were reviewed by the Engage 2 mentors to ensure scientific alignment. Furthermore, the MSc mentoring and career guidance initiative scaled up significantly, with 11 students now receiving active guidance, while financial travel support continued to be granted to both PhD and MSc cohorts to facilitate their participation in core technical events. Additionally, the core technical mapping of university programmes for future skills was finalized.
Scientific and capacity-building milestones included the second Summer School in Braunschweig, a thematic workshop on multimodality in Athens, and inspirational student tours under the "Tomorrow’s Voices" initiative. These events were complemented by several cross-fertilisation and flagship workshops. Parallel to these technical efforts, communication activities successfully expanded the stakeholder community to 813 members via newsletters and dedicated channels. The project promoted its results at key aviation conferences (EASN 2025, SIDs 2025, ASW 2026) and public outreach events like the European Researchers’ Night and Girls in Aviation. On these occasions, project-developed job cards and videos were used to highlight aviation career pathways, while strategic collaborations were reinforced with partners such as CANSO, AviAll, and Women in Aviation.
