"COSMA aims to develop engineering criteria for aircraft design and operations in order to reduce the annoyance within airport communities due to aircraft exterior noise. By today, such criteria do not exist since aircraft noise engineering has historically focused on achieving ever lower noise levels for individual events and at close distance from the runway. Within the frame of a unique approach, COSMA will - improve the understanding of noise annoyance effects due to aircraft in the airport surrounding community through field studies and dedicated psychometric testing - use these findings in setting up optimised aircraft noise shapes - develop techniques for a realistic synthesis aircraft noise around airports - validate the optimised aircraft noise shapes and their associated engineering guidelines - put in place an efficient knowledge management for design practices and scientific information on aircraft exterior noise annoyance effects Through this comprehensive workplan, COSMA will ensure optimum exploitation of the scientific research results by reducing noise annoyance at source (whether by technological or operational means) through an improved understanding of the effects of aircraft noise in the airport surrounding community. Under the technical guidance of industry experts, COSMA will integrate contributions from research organisations and SME’s, bringing together the multi-disciplinary background that is required for achieving the project objectives. COSMA is involving 21 partners from 9 different countries: Germany, France, UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Hungary."