Businesses can apply for funding from ESA Business Applications in two main ways: through our Open Call for Proposals and through our Competitive Tenders. In both cases, you are expected to already be engaged in commercial or developmental activities within your target sectors. If you are an individual person or company, you may wish to partner with others in order to increase your ability to deliver end-to-end solutions.
Since the programme’s inception, ESA Space Solutions has invested more than €280M in over 1700 business ideas, addressing markets in industries worldwide. Funding typically ranges from 50kEuro to 2MEuro and supports everything from early stage feasibility studies to large-scale demonstration projects.
OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS
You propose your ideas directly to ESA, setting out the opportunity you wish to pursue. These applications will each be considered on their own merit. The first step is for you to complete an Activity Pitch Questionnaire (APQ) and send it to ESA at [email protected].
The „Call for Proposals” covers two different activities:
- Feasibility Studies provide the preparatory framework to identify, analyse and define new potentially sustainable applications and services within the ESA Business Applications programme. They have to be compliant with the following requirements: they are user driven, they benefit from the utilisation of one or more space assets and the tenderer intends to pursue a Demonstration Project after successful completion of the Feasibility Study.
- Demonstration Projects are dedicated to the implementation of pre-operational demonstration services within the ESA Business Applications programme, which therefore comply with the following requirements: they are user driven (including user involvement and contribution), they benefit from the utilisation of one or more space assets, with clear potential to become commercially viable in the post project phase.
The activities proposed in response to this Call for Proposals must be relevant to ESA’s Business Applications programme objectives. Although not a competitive tender, the Call for Proposals is published on on EMITS, under „Open Invitations to Tender” reference AO9305.
Funded participation is open to any public organisation, commercial client worldwide or space company (be it as group of users, publid body or non-governmental organisation) residing in any of the ESA Member States that are participating to the programme. To date, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Spain, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have subscribed.
COMPETITIVE TENDERS
You submit your proposal in response to one of our regular open competitions. These are directed at a specific problem or opportunity raised by us. Each application received is assessed in competition with other proposal applications.
