Chairman's editorial

Our Group as a whole - and I personally as EADS Chief Technical Officer - see the EADS Corporate Foundation as an amazing springboard to connect fundamental research and applied science.

This cooperation is vital. Backing research projects is our way of spurring progress in scientific disciplines that may in due course lead to innovation that we can build into our products. We are also intent on promoting science and technology, especially among young audiences.

The "Mob-e3 Imagine the transport of the future" contest that we kicked off last year puts secondary-school students at an engineer's desk to dream up a new means of transport.

The goal, here, is to help them explore science in a new - and fun - light. Over and above that initiative, the scholarship programme that we have introduced this year will enable underprivileged secondary-school students to consider scientific careers without their backgrounds inhibiting them. And we are still working with the French Ministry of Education to roll out our plans to promote science.

Promoting science and technology also involves looking back. Preserving aerospace-industry heritage in all the companies that have put our Group where it is today is another initiative that we have embarked upon.

The partnership that we instigated between a secondary school in Le Blanc-Mesnil, the Aérospatiale-Matra-Patrimoine EADS and Les Alouettes associations, and Eurocopter, to refurbish an Alouette II helicopter, is a perfect example of the synergies that we can tap into between the Ministry of Education, business firms and associations. We are planning to run more of these initiatives in the future." 

Jean Botti, Chief Technical Officer of EADS Group and EADS Foundation's Chairman.