HISTORY OF EUROAVIA

In 1956, a group of students in Aachen, Germany, observed an unstable situation of the Aerospace industry due to a lack of collaboration between this industry and bigger economic branches. After long discussions between students from Germany, France and the Netherlands, finally a solution could be achieved, this has been named “A good cooperation of aerospace and astronautic industries of different countries”. In addition, a vision of this group has been created: An association of all European Aerospace students could help to achieve this goal of a European cooperation.
From that point, active correspondence with professors from Belgium, France and the Netherlands began. A sentence at the beginning of this long correspondence was: “Single European nations cannot provide resources for further development of the European Aerospace. For that reason, it is essential to meet the problems and challenges of the future with a collective cooperation of the European states on a civil, military and university basis.”

At the beginning of the year 1958, Aachen could recruit fourteen active and highly motivated members. The first meeting there with students from France and the Netherlands was a big step, furthermore visits to Italy, France and the Netherlands established a lot of contacts.
During one meeting, a “comité provisoire” was founded. The aim of this group was organising a congress where the statutes for the association with the name “EUROAVIA” should be shaped.

The constitutional preparatory assembly took place in Aachen from September 22nd to 28th. There, the “comité provisoire” discussed the preliminary objectives and organization of EUROAVIA.

The constituent congress took place in Aachen from the 9th to the 17th of March 1959. The days between the preparatory assembly and the congress presented many challenges, such as convincing people to support the future association.
Representatives of Aachen, Berlin, Braunschweig, Delft, ENSA and ENICA Paris, Milan, Pisa, Stuttgart, and Turin were present at the constituent congress. Together, they formed a group of thirty students from ten universities in four different countries. The official Statutes were presented and accepted on the 16th of March 1959. Officially EUROAVIA began its work on the 1st of May 1959.

The first central committee was represented by the group from Aachen, within which Jean Roeder became the first President of the association – which is the reason why he is also considered the “father” of EUROAVIA. During this first year, the main objective was to establish a network between industries and the public and share the EUROAVIA vision among the different European countries.
Some of the first supporters of EUROAVIA were Mr. F. Marxen from Kontor Industries who represented the most important sponsor during the first year; Prof. Dr. Theodore von Karman supported with activities, such as a three-week course in experimental low-speed and high-speed aerodynamics at AGARD training center; Mr. Hugh Dryden, deputy administrator of NASA at the time, provided large number of NACA-TR, TM and TN for interested students. Moreover, members had the opportunity to present their own technical and scientific papers in the Scientific Aeronautical Society of Germany (WGL).

The first EUROAVIA magazine was published in 1964. There, the members could read the latest news from Local Groups and International activities, as well as articles about the Aerospace and Aeronautical fields. This edition was edited in London and printed in Delft. The EUROAVIA magazine is still being published and you can find the latest editions here.
The first practical training was organized by the Local Group in Stuttgart, which became the first official Practical Training Center (PTC). The aim of the center was to coordinate practical trainings in different European countries. This became the first established Working Group of the association.

During 1967 for the first time in EUROAVIA history the Central Committee took decisions and elected new members without permission of the Congress. This enabled the President of that time, Andre Droog, to choose the rest of the Central Committee members. The committee was transferred from Aachen to Delft and after this congress the first meeting minutes were born. This was an important step to keep track of what was said during the congresses. Also, the Statues were translated into English to avoid any misunderstanding.

At the beginning of the 70’s, new European cooperation organizations appeared and began to grow, which resulted in the loss of interest of students towards EUROAVIA. This led to a period of inactivity that lasted until 1974, when the Local Group of Haarlem restarted practical trainings.

In 1984, students believed that the ideals from which EUROAVIA was founded should be reconsidered and restored; thus, a congress in Kingston was organized with this objective. EUROAVIA started growing fast again, with a lot of new Local Groups, the revival of old ones, new activities and annual congresses.

During the congress of 1986, the local group from Delft proposed a new activity called “Fly-In” whose aim was to allow the visiting group to only pay for the journey or as little as possible for a week-long activity. The first one was organized in collaboration by the Delft and Haarlem Local Groups.
One year later, in 1987, the first Newsletter was born, and the association could take advantage of a new way of communication, which is still currently in use.

During the celebration of the 30th anniversary in Aachen, EUROAVIA took some important decisions to expand the association’s objectives. Among such improvements we find: giving students the possibility to experience European exchanges, the organization of practical trainings, the creation of a platform for engineering market, finding a way to remain in contact after graduating, and others.
Finally, an Extra Congress was organized by the C.C. (from the 31st November to the 3rd December). There was the need to redefine the new statutes of the association since the Swedish Local Group was against the old one. In this occasion, the members decided to organize two congresses every year: the Electoral Meeting of the EUROAVIA Congress (EMEAC) and the Annual Meeting of the EUROAVIA Congress (AMEAC).

The end of the 80’s was difficult, as some members complained about certain Local Groups not following the general EUROAVIA goals. This led to a lot of discussion within the Local Groups, but the new decade came with new aspirations.
In the EMEAC of 1990, some of the structures that are still standing today within the association were presented, such as the establishment of “EUROAVIA International” and the replacement of the Central Committee with the International Board (IB). Furthermore, a permanent address was established in Brussels and new Working Groups were created.
In this period, EUROAVIA won the second edition of the “European Space Trophy” on the Youth category, as a recognition of what the association had accomplished, as well as an indication of the continued support of the aerospace industry to the association’s work towards cooperation.
In 1991, the first design contest and workshop have been held in Friedrichshafen, hosted by Dormier Aerospace.

Due to lack of motivation, during the EMEAC of 1996 no International Board was elected, thus an ExMEAC had to be held to elect a full Board. This problem was present all along the 90’s and, for this reason, every International Board tried to improve the motivation among members, especially the young ones. Even though it had a rough start, it was in this year that the World Wide Web Working Group was created. Furthermore, an online forum to interact between EUROAVIAns was created, which increased the interactions between the different associations in Europe.
A new International Event was created, similar to the Fly-In, which was called “Glide-In” and was organized by the Local Group in Warsaw.

By the end of the 90’s decade, the Statutes and Bylaws were officially registered in Delft and the decision to create a formation project was taken. The formation project’s aim was to avoid the loss of information through time and avoid the lack of know-how inside the association, to allow the association to reach its goals. The first one was held on Lisbon in 2000.
Moreover, EUROAVIA became an affiliated member of the European Space Agency (ESA), which opened a lot of opportunities to its members.
This new millennium came also with brand new events hosted by different Local Groups. Some examples are the Air Cargo Challenge, first held in Lisbon in 2007; the Rocket Workshop, first held in Cluj-Napoca in 2016; the Leadership Workshop, first held in Napoli in the same year; and the first Train New Trainers (TNT), first held in Bucharest in 2018.

For the first time in EUROAVIA history, a group of students, geographically outside Europe, joins the network: AM Kourou.

To celebrate 60 years from the foundation of the association, a Lustrum was organized in Aachen. The Lustrum is a traditional EUROAVIA event which takes place every five years to celebrate the anniversary of its foundation.
A series of conferences and discussions took place with guests from Airbus, the International Space University (ISU), the Community of Ariane Cities (CVA), RWTH Aachen, Lilium, and CAE Elektronik. Such an event allowed the participants to learn about the developments on the Aerospace industry and network with the industry representatives, which is one of EUROAVIA’s main goals. The celebration ended with a gala dinner.

The breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 put EUROAVIA in a critical position since physical events had to be stopped by the situation. Events are fundamental to the association since they are an opportunity to meet, interact and create a network among EUROAVIAns from different Local Groups all around Europe. To keep members interested and active inside their Local Groups, online conferences and events started to take place: for the first time Congresses and Trainings took place online.