Fly Your Ideas Challenge

Fly Your Ideas is the Airbus global innovation challenge for university students which brings together teams from around the world to address real-world challenges facing the aerospace industry.

The challenge is open to university students from all disciplines, studying at any university worldwide; teams must have at least three, and a maximum of five, students from all profiles and backgrounds; participants should be enrolled in a university until at least June 2026; and students studying towards a Bachelor's and Master’s degrees, as well as PhD students, are welcome.

The 2026 Fly Your Ideas challenge focuses on the use of innovative digital technologies to secure tomorrow’s connected aerospace systems. 

Teams must consist of three to five students and we encourage you to include students from a range of profiles and backgrounds for a high performing team.

To take part in the 2026 challenge, three steps must be completed before the round one deadline:

1. The team leader must register first, provide a team name and create a team by providing the email addresses of up to four team members. 
2. The team leader will be given a link to share at which all team members must complete their profiles. 
3. Once at least three profiles are complete, the team leader can access and complete the team’s submission form which must be done by the round one deadline.

Note: all email addresses used for registration must be linked to a Google account. Your university email address will be requested for validation if needed.

You are sharing your data with Airbus, which uses the Google environment. This helps ensure everyone is on the same platform. If you are selected for round two, you will be invited to an Airbus Google Space to connect with Airbus representatives.

Yes. You can add more members, up to a maximum of five per team, until the round one submission deadline. 

All participants will receive a digital certificate and benefit from the chance to develop key skills for cutting edge digital and aerospace roles, explore innovative and emerging technology and tools, connect with industry experts and global peers and access career opportunities and insights. 

All finalists get a guaranteed internship and career coaching. The winning team will receive an invitation to join Airbus at Farnborough International Airshow in July 2026.

Before the end of round one, each team must identify one member of academic staff who can verify that the team members are genuine students at the named institution(s) and will lend support in the development of their proposal, joining meetings with the team and their Airbus mentor if wished. The ‘Academic Mentor’ is a member of the academic staff of the team leader's university. They are invited to join the global online final in June 2026 if the team they are supporting is among the finalists and if their team wins the challenge, the Academic Mentor will be invited to join them as  a guest of Airbus at the Farnborough International Airshow.