This cross-European initiative is geared towards both to better understand barriers to drone technology and removing them to help foster economic growth and societal benefit.
At its core, Aerial Uptake aims to remove barriers that hinder the successful application of innovative drone technology across the European Union. While drone applications have promising potential in the fields of public safety, logistics and agriculture, a lacking European level playing field and limited knowledge and public acceptance of this emerging technology call for improved regional development policies to overcome these barriers. The project aims to reach this objective through interregional learning activities.
Aerial Uptake officially started on 1 August 2019. The Preston partners join a number of European partners consisting of municipalities, regional governments and research institutes: Province of Overijssel and City of Enschede (The Netherlands), Government of Catalonia and I2CAT (Spain), City of Osijek (Croatia), Rzeszow Regional Development Agency (Poland), Preston City Council and University of Central Lancashire (United Kingdom) and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden.
Archen’s John Mills was a project partner representing the University of Central Lancashire and also responsible for the “Insight Journalism” methodology to generate local insights.
The collaboration will focus on three thematic fields. Firstly, fostering innovation through facilitative measures for experimenting, testing and demonstrating novel UAS technologies. Secondly, promoting market uptake through enhanced collaboration and networking from an end-user perspective. Lastly, improving societal acceptance by addressing ethical, legal and social concerns, raising public demand and due consideration of potential social impacts and benefits.
Top line project markers are:
– 6 structural funds influenced to the value of €4.3m
– 5 ‘good practices’ added to the funder’s database
– 73 citizens across 5 EU regions have reported direct ‘capacity’ building as a result of the project
– 2 jobs created
Softer markers included:
– new project proposals that foster further cross-boarder collaboration and cross-border cooperation (Germany and The Netherlands)
– a focus on the ethical and societal considerations for tech-projects supported by regional government in The Netherlands
– creation of a business case for a drone cluster in Lancashire and local business support for those interested in developing or taking advantage of drone tech
– an education programme in Croatia to introduce drones and their civic benefits to primary-aged school children
– the uniting of drone, ai, blockchain communities of practice in Catalonia
– energy to form new partnerships moving forward