The Belt and Road Aerospace Innovation Alliance (BRAIA) 2019 Council Meeting and General Assemblywas successfully held in Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) during September 3-4, 2019, which is the most essential annual managerial meeting this year. It is also the 13th BRAIA event since the establishment of BRAIA in April 2017and fourth event out of China (Egypt, Spain, Pakistan and Italy). Nearly 50 delegates from 19 universities and organizations from 10 countries including Britain, Belgium, Spain, Argentina, Russia, Poland, Italy, Egypt, Bangladesh and China, attended the conference.

The outcomes of this meeting mainly include the approval of 12 BRAIA new membership, successful election of 9 BRAIA Academic Committee members and the establishment of BRAIA Academic Committee, and the consensus made on BRAIA first Regional Development Center——South Asia, based on National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. The 12 newly approved members of BRAIA are Ufa State Aviation Technical University, Amur State University, National Engineering School of Tunis, CETYS university, Warsaw University of Technology, Cairo University, Universidad Nacional De La Plata (National University of La Plata), Universiti Putra Malaysia, ORION Space, Qingdao Hengtianyi Information Technology Co., Ltd, ARCSSTE-E (African Regional Centre for Space Science & Tech. Education -English), and Galaxy Space Co., Ltd .

In the meanwhile, nine out of 24 scholars from BRAIA member units have been elected as members of Academic Committee of BRAIA, including scholars from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Beihang University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Queen Mary University of London, Moscow Aviation Institute, Russia, Military Technical College, Egypt, Queen Mary University of London, UK, Institute of Space Technology, Pakistan, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain. Professor Weihong Zhang was voted as the first Chairman ofBRAIA Academic Committee. National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan has been approved as the first BRAIA Regional Development Center (RDC) - BRAIA RDC South Asia, to enhance the BRAIA further development in different regions and countries along the belt and road. It is expected that NUST will play more important role in the development ofBRAIA worldwide especially in South Asia.This meeting sets the solid foundation for the further development of BRAIA for international cooperation among universities, enterprises and international organizations. It is hoped that with the support of new members and under the guidance of academic committee, BRAIA will make greater strides.