The proposed coordination action OPTICS will provide oversight of progress in research and innovation aiming to improve the safety and security of aviation in accordance with Flightpath 2050 challenges and goals, exploiting as far as possible the identified metrics, achievements, main topic areas and broad industry knowledge and expertise base established in the development industry's SRIA.OPTICS will implement sustainable processes supporting stakeholders with strategic recommendations and a comprehensive vision of the safety-oriented research landscape. The action will implement a reference base and methodologies to perform assessment of progress both from a technological perspective - are we doing the right research, and from the societal and economic perspective - are we doing the research right - is it delivering societal and market benefit?The surveys are to be performed on an annual basis, in close collaboration with expertise drawn from the industry through a series of workshops, fully exploiting the network developed by ACARE. Assessments will be performed upon all on-going initiatives explicitly addressing safety research.The assessments will result in the provision of an annual report, identifying main performers, gaps and obstacles in the research landscape, formulating strategic recommendations, corrective actions and suggested priorities. The findings are to be presented and discussed with the aviation community at an annual Safety conference, organised on the premises of EASA, EUROCONTROL, etc.The results of the annual state-of-the-art review, together with relevant basic data, project information will be made available on the OPTICS repository accessible on the a action’s dedicated website.Finally, this action will ensure co-ordination and wherever possible, create synergies, with other actions supporting complementary challenges.