Space and earth come closer in Matera through SPACE2ID

Submitted by David Convers on 16 December 2016

On Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 November the members of Space Clusters International Industrial Diversification or SPACE2ID met in Matera, Italy in order to examine the progress of the project, identify current strengths and weaknesses and take decisions on future actions.

SPACE2ID at a glance

SPACE2ID is working towards being the very first structured action for Space Service Providers and Application Developers to take advantage of the huge economic potential of several industrial sectors. Bringing together 10 clusters from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain, a clear “market pull” orientation exists so as to create a sustainable ESCP (European Strategic Cluster Partnership) between European Space Clusters and other key European business clusters, under the MELCA scheme or Mobility, Energy, Logistics, Creative Industries and Agriculture.

Matera matters

After having participated to the “When Space meets Agriculture” conference and introduced SPACE2ID project and the international potential of space data for agriculture, the European partners of the ESCP joined together in a 2-day project meeting.

Project partners described thoroughly its follow-up, commenting that the production of deliverables and overall project progress is more than positive as several key WPs are now closed. They permitted to map capabilities and projects of European cutting-edge SMEs, and to cross them to various MELCA fields of application. A total of more than 90 entities have been involved in this process, via the participation to events of workshops organized by the consortium. Additionally, valuable outlines on space technologies for MELCA sectors were introduced, as well as a preliminary version of the Internationalization strategy of the Partnership. 

This has been confirmed by the signature of the Partnership Agreement liaising together the various clusters of the Space2ID initiative. The objective is clear: developing a joint European internationalization strategy, and developing a long-term cross-sectorial cooperation under the name of Space4Globe.

Global affairs

Space4Globe partnership was also a fruitful topic of the meeting. Opportunities were identified and thoroughly discussed. All partners indicated active interest on the substantial matter of internationalization of the project.

Next steps of the joint internationalization activity were reviewed and approved for 2017 and 2018, where all MELCA sectors will be represented, in some high priority countries.

To conclude, the historical city of Matera offered the perfect environment for a beneficial meeting full of valuable discussions and influential decisions. SPACE2ID is in shape, is advancing quickly and is full of promises for an even more productive future for its partners. More news on this project will be soon publicized.

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