Prof. David Raper is the Director of Research and Enterprise for the University. He is internationally recognized for his work on the environmental impacts of airports, has co-authored a number of books and over 60 scientific papers on aviation/environment issues. His particular areas of expertise include aviation sustainability, environmental constraints at airports, the impact of local air quality at airports and aircraft emissions. Prof Raper was appointed by the UK Government to Chair a Committee tasked with determining best practice for assessing the air quality impacts of Heathrow Airport. He has worked for many airports across the UK including Heathrow, Manchester, East Midlands, Bristol and Birmingham. He has been advisor to the Airports Council International WORLD Standing Committees on Environment and to the UK Government Department for Transport.

He is on, or has been on, the steering committee or management group of a number of EU projects such as XNoise, ECATS and AERONET. He is currently on the Executive Board of the recently formed ECATS Association.  He was a lead author of the 1999 IPCC report on aviation and climate change. In 2006 Prof Raper was awarded £5m to establish the Omega partnership of UK Universities.