The Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion brings together researchers from four Florida universities to study the next generation of space travel and commercial air travel.

UF and Florida State University may not get along on the football field, but their engineering colleges work together just fine when it comes to improving Florida's space and tourism industries.

The two universities, along with the University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, comprise the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion, or FCAAP — a $14.57 million center of excellence approved by the Florida Legislature during the 2008 legislative session. The center officially kicked off in mid-November.

FCAAP is led by FSU and headquartered at a laboratory in Tallahassee, but it involves professors and researches at all four universities.

Lawrence Ukeiley, a UF assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and co-director of UF's arm of FCAAP, described the center as a way for the universities to be more in touch with the aerospace industry, whether that means performing research, transplanting technology or educating engineers who will stay in Florida.

The center will focus on the next generation of space travel and commercial air travel, including how to reduce aircraft noise and make air traffic control systems more efficient, he said.

"Anything that can help tourism and get more planes in and out of airports would be beneficial to the state," he said.

He said FSU distributes money to the four participating institutions for their individual research.

Louis Cattafesta, a UF associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the other FCAAP director at UF, said UF received about $3 million of FCAAP-related money for six faculty members to conduct research. Cattafesta said the faculty members are conducting the research in their individual laboratories, but UF might build a facility specifically for FCAAP research in the future.

For now, the goal is for Florida universities to establish themselves as experts in the aerospace industry so they can be more competitive for additional research funding, Cattafesta said.

"It could grow to the point that when you mention aerospace research that this could be one of the top places that you think of," he said. "And we'd like the University of Florida to be a prominent part of that."