The University Consortium is directed by The George Washington University
and includes the George Mason University Institute of Public Policy
and other aviation professionals. The consortium was formed specifically
to develop this summit program.
Founded in 1821 and chartered by the United States Congress, The
George Washington University is the largest institution of higher
education in the nation’s capital. Despite its 180 years of
history, the University continues to generate creative energy, breaking
down the boundaries between disciplines and the divide between academia
and the world at large. The University has nine major schools, offering
hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs.
As a primary response to the White House Conference on International
Aviation Safety and Security in the 21st Century (January 1997), The
George Washington University has made a commitment to establish programs
of research and education in aviation safety. The Aviation Institute
is an interdisciplinary, collaborative effort established by three
institutes within The George Washington University: the Transportation
Research Institute, the International Institute of Tourism Studies,
and the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management. The Aviation
Institute is the first attempt by a major university in the United
States to combine the efforts of federal, state, and local government,
as well as industry and academia, to promote a comprehensive approach
to safety and security issues facing the aviation industry in the
new millennium.
George Mason University‘s Center for Transportation Policy and
Logistics is a university member of the consortium. The center’s
focus on aviation policy was initiated in the late 1990s with a strong
emphasis on policy. While most of this center’s funding has
been from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Center has conducted
a variety of projects for client groups at the state and local level
in the U.S. and for clients in Australia, Asia, Europe (Western and
Central), South America and Africa. Work has been sponsored by major
global airlines also, including United Airlines, American Airlines,
British World Airways, Delta Air Lines and Singapore Airlines. The
faculties in the GMU transportation program are regularly involved
in conferences as speakers and paper presenters and in training and
consulting activities in the U.S. as well as in other countries. During
the past year the faculty has engaged in assignments or conferences
in more than 20 countries. Publishing is an important activity in
the Center with some twenty books and monographs written and published
over the past two years. The topics have ranged from transport economics
to aviation networks and policy, to transport modeling and Intelligent
Transportation Systems.
