The European space sector has undergone a drastic development in the last years, following the advent of the private spaceflight industry. Space is now more accessible than it was a decade ago, and this has made it interesting from an industrial and educational perspective. The European space economy is already valued at €50 billion and research in aerospace technologies is one of the priority areas covered in the Horizon 2020 section Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges. The European Commission and the European Investment Bank join forces to boost space sector investment with €200 million. The EuroSpaceHub project wants to leverage this financing structure from different funding opportunities with strong access to the space technology ecosystem.

EuroSpaceHub aims to connect digitally the space ecosystem in Europe, from tech transfer offices to industry, space accelerator networks, research centres, and other universities. The project will allow these actors to easily connect with financial opportunities from the Horizon Europe framework, the venture capital programme, and the InnovFin initiative. EuroSpaceHub will bridge the gap between academic institutions and industry using a collaborative mindset and entrepreneurship programmes inside the universities connected through tech transfer offices.

The EuroSpaceHub consortium has five full partners: Vilnius Gediminas Technical University in (Lithuania), International Space University (France), Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), Lunar Explorers Society (the Netherlands) and Collabwith Group (the Netherlands). These full partners are supported by 12 associate partners from the space ecosystem, including one ESA business incubation centre, two venture capital networks, three higher education institutions, two photonics and aerospace research centres, one technology park, one space foundation, and the Ministry of Economics in Lithuania.

Based on the full partners’ HEInnovate self-assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, the project aims to:

• create a new educational programme for entrepreneurship and innovation in space to leverage collaborative entrepreneurship;
• create a new tech transfer strategy and entrepreneurship liaison for universities to strengthen entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems;
• develop a strategy for space innovation ecosystems, including scaling a network of voluntary ambassadors inside every space-related organisation to ensure engagement;
• connect the space ecosystems of universities and industry via a EuroSpaceHub digital platform to increase collaboration and valorisation of tech transfer, and to leverage start-up projects with access to networks;
• connect events with students and non-academic staff to attract multi-disciplinary space professionals for innovation workshops, analogue missions, astronaut training, and space instrumentation and ecosystem networking events.

Project coordinator

 Vilma Puriene, Head of Knowledge and Technology Transfer Centre, Vilnius Gediminas Technical university (contact)