RINGO will deliver a holistic identification of research infrastructure needs, gaps and overlaps for the aviation sector in Europe with respect to fulfilment of the goals specified in the strategy document “Flightpath 2050” (see http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/doc/flightpath2050.pdf). In addition to the infrastructures themselves, the operation of infrastructures is analyzed and potential operation and business models for existing and future research infrastructures are derived. The outcome of RINGO will serve as input to the European Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda as well as provide a sound basis for decision making within the strategic planning of the related stakeholders, i.e. EC, Member States, ACARE, Industry, Research Establishments and Academia.

For the identification of needs, investigations such as workshops, surveys and interviews will be conducted with active involvement of subject matter experts and stakeholders from across the European aviation community. In parallel, a catalogue with currently available aviation research infrastructures will be brought together based on previous work within actions such as the EU projects “AirTN” and “EASN”. Once available, the results on the needs (identified in the workshops etc.) will be compared to the catalogue of currently available infrastructures in the so called “matching” step. From the matching, gaps and overlaps in research infrastructures will be identified. In addition, a temporal resolution on when these facilities will be needed and should be available will be given by the experts. On the methodological approach, experience gained in several other EU projects such as the CSAs OPTICS, CAPPADOCIA and CATER will be exploited. Lessons learnt in this context with respect to data mining and knowledge capturing will be taken into account within RINGO.