Building World-Class Experts for Defence & Aviation Industries of the Future
The Global Defence and Aviation Skills Conference 2025 (GDAS 2025) is the strategic hub for technical, vocational, and higher education excellence in aviation, aerospace, and defence technologies.
This executive-level international summit convenes Ministers, Defence Leaders, University Chancellors, TVET Council Heads, and Aviation Industry Executives from Europe and Asia to address one critical mission: How can higher education and TVET jointly build world-class experts who will power the defence and aviation industries of the future?
The summit fosters cross-border cooperation, establishes policy frameworks for advanced skills training, and creates a unified ecosystem linking government, academia, and industry — ensuring training systems keep pace with rapid technological, digital, and security transformations.
Key Summit Themes
Strategic focus areas addressing the evolving landscape of defence and aviation capabilities
Future Platform & Capability Development
New aircraft, rotor-wing and fixed-wing platforms, unmanned systems and their integration into defence/aviation operations. Topics such as manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T), autonomous systems and next-generation sensors will feature strongly.
Workforce, Skills & Leadership
How defence and aviation sectors must develop, attract and retain talent; adapt training, build leadership for complex domains; cross-discipline skills (technology, data, cyber, human factors).
Operational Resilience & Multi-Domain Operations
In contested or degraded environments, how aviation and defence assets must adapt: digital transformation, resilient supply chains, maintenance-life-extension programmes.
Digital Transformation & Data-Driven Operations
Including AI/ML for mission support, predictive maintenance, data fusion, communications, cockpit and mission systems innovation.
International & Industry Collaboration
Enabling interoperability across nations and organisations, partnerships between government, military, industry and academia; export, procurement, regulation and capability-sharing.
Training, Simulation & Human Factors
The future of training for pilots, maintainers, air-crew and systems operators; how simulation, immersive technologies and new pedagogy will underpin skills development.
How to Participate
We welcome submissions from senior leaders, practitioners, and researchers across defence, aviation, training and education sectors. The submission process involves the following steps:
Prepare Your Abstract
Submit a 300-word abstract outlining your research question, methodology, findings, and relevance to defence & aviation skills development.
Abstract Review
Abstracts will be reviewed by our expert committee of defence and aviation leaders. If accepted, you'll be invited to submit a full paper.
Full Paper Submission
Submit your full paper (6-10 pages) following conference formatting guidelines. All papers undergo peer review by domain experts.
Presentation
Accepted papers will be presented as keynote sessions, panel discussions, or workshops, based on your preference and committee recommendations.
