Space2IDGO, a reference in exporting European space innovation for ground solutions
► The project, with a duration of 27 months, is co-funded by the European Union’s COSME Programme.
► The project has selected 13 European SMEs to export in 5 third countries.
The Space2IDGO (Space Clusters International Diversification Go) project, is the second step of a two-stand process started with Space2ID (Space Clusters International Industrial Diversification) the first structured action for Space Service Providers and Application Developers to directly address the huge economic potential of several industrial sectors, carefully selected at European and International level with a clear “market pull” orientation. These sectors are: Mobility, Energy, Logistics, Creative industries and Agriculture (MELCA sectors) where the use of satellite data provides strong added value and accelerates the development of new value chains.
Space2IDGO has consolidated the ambitions to go international stronger and faster by proposing an innovative support towards SMEs willing to go international, helping to disseminate the added value of space data in MELCA value chains and developing business between European SMEs and new abroad partners and customers.
The Project, that ends now, has offered to European SMEs – in particular space service providers, application developers or working in MELCA sectors and looking to develop a service using space-based technologies or data -, a whole internationalization process in cooperation with Price Waterhouse and Cooper (PwC).
The fast-track to internationalization programmes has involved several steps:
- 12 enterprise’s diagnosis with analysis of its internationalization level with recommendations
- 8 Webinars on «How to go global », on targeted « Country markets » (United Arab Emirates, Canada, China, Chile and Colombia), and on «Intellectual property rights in Latin America»
- 3 matchmaking missions organised in Canada, in United Arab Emirates and in Chile involving 10 SMEs
- Debriefing after mission and follow-up process for each SME
- Final diagnosis to analyze the evolution for each SME
The missions result to several meetings, either with academics, institutionals or business stakeholders, and were an opportunity to first explore a new country and to comeback with good contacts to develop partnerships and business. The results will be concretized in the coming months but promising developments for some of the companies can already be seen.
Thirteen innovative European SMEs were selected having benefited from the support of the programme, involving four countries: France, Spain, Italy and Greece, and five targeted country markets: United Arab Emirates, Canada, China, Chile and Colombia.
Testimonies of European SMEs participating in the Project
“We are very satisfied about the UAE matchmaking mission’s organisation and about th opportunities created for our company by TERN and ALSIA. We know that it is difficult to operate and make business in this country because the international competition is very high in the field of innovative and high tech services. The SPACE2IDGO project support was crucial for us to open a new market.” Angelo DONVITO, CEO of DIGIMAT SPA who went to United Arab Emirates. “We are very satisfied with this mission which was a first for us in a foreign country. We could not have had the same approach and contacts without the help of the program.” – Clément FRAIGNEAU, CEO of PERMAGRO who went to Chile
“I was satisfied with the collective meetings organized by Michel Stassart and his team. The discovering of the Canadian Space ecosystem was relevant with the participation of the Ontario Investment and Trade Centre, the Canadian Space Agency.” Grégory BEDDELEEM, CCO of ANYWAVES who went to Canada.
Space2IDGO: a cluster collaboration project
The project has brought together nine European Clusters, four of them are active in the space industry: Madrid Aerospace Cluster (http://www.madridaerospace.es/), TeRN (http://www.tern.it/), si-Cluster (http://www.si-cluster.gr/ ), Skywin (http://www.skywin.be), another four active in the MELCA sectors: Basque Energy Cluster (http://www.clusterenergia.com/), gi-Cluster (http://www.gi-cluster.gr/en/), Logistics in Wallonia (http://www.logisticsinwallonia.be/), Alsia (http://www.alsia.it/opencms/opencms) and Aerospace Valley (http://www.aerospace-valley.com/), the coordinator of the Project, which is active in both.
Space2IDGO is co-funded by the the European Union’s COSME Programme, the Europe’s programme for small and medium-sized enterprises.
What comes next?
The creation of the Space4Globe Partnership, in which all the Project members are involved, aims to foster the Space2IDGO initiative and to develop international activities supporting European SMEs using space based data to export.
Space4Globe will intensify the cluster synergies between space clusters and other sectoral clusters to implement a joint international strategy.
More information
► Maude PERIER-CAMBY
space2idgo-info@aerospace-valley.com
www.space2idgo.eu
► Space4Globe
info@space4globe.eu
www.space4globe.eu
