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A new aerospace research and development (R&D) centre called Lift is the latest in a series of collaborative efforts to help develop drone technology – and a drone industry – in Finland. The project involves a community of experts, and one of the founding members is VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Owned by the Finnish state, VTT is one of the Europe’s leading research and technology organisations (RTOs). Its role is to advance the utilisation and commercialisation of research and technology in business and society. Roughly one-third of the funding of VTT comes from the Finnish government, and another third comes from publicly and jointly funded projects, such as EU projects and national projects. Hannu Karvonen, senior scientist and ecosystem lead for autonomous systems at VTT, says: “The other third comes from commercial projects, funded by customer work, which is usually under non-disclosure agreement [NDA] and cannot be discussed publicly. These commercial projects usually involve applied contract research for a ...