Collaboration or co-operation is variously described as helpfulness, joint effort, team work, working together, sink or swim together, ‘a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together’. It implies cheerful consent and eagerness, cordiality and goodwill. All these are characteristics inherent in the human make-up. Men learnt early on that they could, and had to, specialise and share the work and that they could, and had to, trust one another. These characteristics are probably largely responsible for the survival of our species. In what I want to say, collaboration means all these things. My main theme will be that these characteristics must now motivate us to ensure the survival of aerospace research and its application to keep European aviation alive and competitive. All my remarks will be confined to research matters.