"Due to continuous efforts through past and ongoing European projects, lean combustion by means of internally staged injectors now appears to be the promising technology for obtaining the required emission reductions compatible with a sustainable growth of aviation transport. (cf ACARE 2020) Recognising that putting into service such a technology as soon as possible is the only way to effectively reduce the aviation environmental impact, TECC-AE addresses some unavoidable issues in order to: 1) Solve the main limitations identified during past and ongoing projects appearing when lean combustion is pushed toward its maximum potential about NOx emissions reduction. In particular, TECC-AE will a) Provide full combustor operability in terms of ignition, altitude relight and weak extinction performance b) Suppress the occurrence of thermo-acoustic instabilities by reducing the combustor sensitivity to unsteady features to a level such instabilities will not happen 2) Ensure injection system robustness with respect to coking that can appears during transient operations of the engine. 3) Optimise the combustion system’s operational and environmental performance through all the flight phases 4) Develop, demonstrate and validate design rules, CFD capabilities and scaling laws 5) Provide a global optimisation of the multiplicity of combustion parameters of lean combustion systems to achieve lower flame temperatures and thus lower thermal NOx formation To look even further ahead and to overcome the complexity issues inherent to staged lean combustors, TECC-AE will also focused on the design and assessment of an innovative, compact, lighter and simplified lean combustion combustor concept, and on the development of a compact Ultra Low NOx (ULN) injection system. A Global technology assessment taking into account results of LOPOCOTEP, TLC, INTELLECT DM, and TECC-AE will be established in order to define the combustion technology able to meet ACARE 2020 targets."