ENAIRE, Spain’s national air navigation manager, through CRIDA—its Research, Development and Innovation (R&D&I) subsidiary in partnership with Ineco and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM)—is launching the fourth edition of the Technological Challenges Competition, a strategic initiative aimed at finding pioneering technological solutions in the field of air traffic management (ATM).
“This competition is designed to promote collaboration with knowledge centres and innovation system stakeholders, facilitating the development of advanced technologies that can be applied in real-world environments,” said ENAIRE’s CEO, Enrique Maurer.
Call for applications open
Interested groups will be able to submit their proposals until 30 June 2025 through the official website of the ENAIRE Open Innovation programme, which contains all the information on the challenges, the rules of the competition and the registration processEl enlace se abre en una nueva ventana.
Challenges of the competition
This year’s topics address five key challenges to the transformation of the air navigation and air traffic management sector.
- Towards explainable and safe Artificial Intelligence (AI) in air traffic management through certification.
- Operational resilience in ATM: strategies for recovering from failures in automated systems.
- Oversight in ATM: transparency, supervision and control of AI in real time.
- Assisted automation in ATM: digital assistant for air traffic controllers.
- Multi-objective optimisation: dynamic balance between safety, capacity and sustainability in ATM.
Prizes and benefits for the selected teams
The two winning teams will sign an 18-month research agreement with CRIDA worth 60,000 euros, during which they will develop their proposed projects to demonstrate their technical and economic suitability and feasibility.
Presentation of results: Demo Day
The selected proposals will be presented at Demo Day, to be held in November 2026 in Madrid, where the teams will reveal the progress made before an audience made up of innovation managers, ENAIRE executives and representatives of the technological and institutional ecosystem.
