Stepping into a new decade, EUROAVIA’s first big change was achieved by adopting a brand-new image: A change in its Corporate Identity (CI). This change included, for example, adopting two new colours, dark midnight blue and mercury, as well as the logo we know today. Although the desire to change the CI was expressed since the beginning of the decade, a lot of work was needed to make such change, and the new CI was presented, discussed and approved only between 2017 and 2018.
Always at the beginning of the decade, an important rule regarding International Events was established: Local Groups would have the obligation to organise an IE at certain time intervals. At first, three years was proposed, but after concerning discussions on how this time was too short, the rule finally read “5 years”; like the one we know to this day.
Congresses were still the most important events for the association, and members were striving to make them as involved as possible. To do so, the Open Space Sessions (OSS) and Parallel Sessions were introduced. The former is an activity where members split into groups to brainstorm and discuss a problem EUROAVIA is currently facing, and they try to find solutions or ways to improve the situation. Among the most important suggestions stemmed from such discussions we have the EUROAVIA Cup, the expansion beyond Europe, and the improvement of relations with alumni. The latter is a collection of presentations where the Local Groups can display to one another all the activities and achievements they managed during the year. Both tools proved effective in making congresses more interactive.
On the note of expanding outside of European borders, in 2013, for the first time, EUROAVIA accepted a Local Group outside of Europe, and more specifically Kourou, in French Guiana. This however also raised questions on how far EUROAVIA wanted to expand and pushed the members to define arbitrarily the borders of Europe and divide the Local Groups into Affiliated Societies (AS), the groups within Europe, and Adjunct Members (AM), the groups outside of this border. AM, among other things, do not have the right to vote and are not obliged to organise IEs. Later in 2017, two other associations became AM: Zewail City (now Cairo) from Egypt, and Jalandhar from India.
Many Working Groups were established during these years, like the Communication WG (the merging of the old News WG and Newsletter WG), Affiliated Societies WG, International Events WG, Human Resources WG, and Design WG. Unfortunately, other WGs became inactive instead, mainly because of the lack of finances to carry out their activities, like the DeWo WG and EYE WG. To face these problems, the Innovation and Development WG was established to bring innovative solutions and create new events. This WG brought ideas like Hackathons, Drone Workshops, and, definitely the most successful idea, the Airbus Sloshing Rocket Workshop. A last important WG that was established is the EUROAVIA Training System WG. This is aimed at delivering soft skill formation to the members during ad hoc events like Formation Workshops or Train New Trainers, an event with which the WG would also recruit new members. Training sessions were and still are also delivered during other types of IE or physical meetings.
Finally, during this decade EUROAVIA’s composition changed drastically and dynamically, with many Local Groups being born or becoming inactive. This was due to the great motivation of new individuals but also to problems like the lack of new people to carry on the associations, generation gaps, or communication issues – all problems we still know very well today. Sadly, many groups that were present since the first EUROAVIA days have been dissolved, like Turin, Milan, Hamburg, and Berlin. However, many new groups entered the EUROAVIA family with great motivation, like Forlì-Bologna, Cluj-Napoca, Belgrade, Bordeaux, Kocaeli, Oostende, Valencia, and Covilhã. All of these changes shaped EUROAVIA into the association we know today.