Andreas Scheuer, Germany’s Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure, signed a memorandum on cooperation with the four German Urban Air Mobility (UAM) model cities and regions of Aachen, Ingolstadt, Hamburg and North Hesse to start a new innovation network for the use of drones in Germnay.

Today we are starting a new innovation network for the use of drones in Germany. Aachen, Ingolstadt, Hamburg and North Hesse are pioneering regions for the new air mobility. In the future, we will work even more closely together to bring drone innovations into practice. The know-how 'Made in Germany' is there. We want to use that even more. To do this, we bring everyone together: the drone community, start-ups, research, cities and municipalities. The goal: to make Germany the lead market for drone innovations.

—Federal Minister Andreas Scheuer

The innovaion network is intended to address:

• Infrastructure construction and reconstruction: The network wants to develop technical and legal solutions, for example for Vertiports or the charging and communication infrastructure. These can help cities and municipalities as blueprints to build the infrastructure.

• Airspace integration: The network wants to create real laboratories and test fields for setting up U-Spaces.

• Best practice examples: The network wants to create joint drone and air taxi projects that provide municipalities and rescue services with new impulses and insights into their possible uses.

• Social acceptance: Citizens should be better educated, informed and taken along about developments in urban air mobility , for example through dialogue events and best practices.

UAM initiative of the European Commission. As part of the UAM - Initiative for Cities & Communities (UIC²) of the EU Commission, 43 European cities and regions have agreed to advance and test the development of innovative air mobility concepts. Ingolstadt, Aachen, Hamburg and the North Hesse / Bad Hersfeld region are participating in the initiative from Germany. In June 2018, the BMVI signed the first letters of intent for Urban Air Mobility with Aachen and Ingolstadt.

To support research, development and testing of innovative technologies, applications and air mobility concepts in the field of unmanned aviation and flying taxis, the BMVI launched a call for ideas and funding in 2019 with a volume of €29 million. 160 project outlines were received as part of the call for ideas and funding—many of them with reference to the UAM model regions and cities.