European aerospace body today gave its backing to a European Union plan to boost innovation by forging a single market for research in the bloc.
The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE), whose 30 members include representatives from industry and EU governments, presented its first findings at Britain's Farnborough International Air Show.
ACARE said the industry needed to adopt a new approach to research in order to meet the challenges of the next 20 years.
"This will require step changes in concepts using new and breakthrough technologies to create a future system that is as distinct and different from today's as the air transport system of the 1930s," the ACARE report said.
It called for the industry and EU governments to increase their co-operation, develop large-scale test beds, agree a common certification system and encourage mobility and life-long learning among researchers.
ACARE supported an EU target of achieving €100 billion of civil aerospace research by companies, national governments and the EU over the next 20 years.
The drive is part of an EU plan to catch up with the United States, which spends twice as much on civil aerospace research and 14 times as much on military research as the EU.