Achievements

1. Total exports of cluster members increased +154% from 2011 to 2013 and ratio of Exports vs. Revenues increased from 20% to 40%. Increase of turnover came from exports building on common cluster branding and marketing strategy, common cluster participation in trade fairs, roadshows, conferences, etc, strategic alliances with global domain leaders, Develop of communication and collaboration channels among the members, and with similar actors within the European and the international space marketplace, enhancement of innovation capacity/edge through partnerships, acquisitions and/or outsourcing to innovative cluster members.
2. Globalization has increased the need to combine strong internal dynamics within a cluster with solid linkages to clusters and markets located elsewhere. The si-Cluster had little cooperation with similar or complementary clusters at national and international level. Those linkages were established and in this respect the following was implemented: Linkages and strategic alliances with other clusters worldwide that provide complimentary capabilities are created, Collaboration and strategic alliance opportunities with other thematic clusters in Greece was established in order to achieve technology spill-overs and innovation-multipliers.
3. The European Space Agency has recently announced, in the framework of its Industrial Policy Committee (ESA IPC), the current status of its Member-States’ geographical return coefficient/GRC. The GRC value is deemed as particularly important at this instance, as 2015 marks the start of new statistics measuring period. The relevant documentation shows a considerable improvement, in terms of contracts awarded to Greek entities under the various ESA Programmes, thus contributing to an unprecedented value of the GRC of over 1 (1.06). At the level of net contract value this corresponds to 2.5 M € above the target level of 41 M € that signifies a GRC equal to 1. It should be underlined that this outcome has been achieved within the very competitive ESA environment and during a financial crisis which has caused considerable difficulties for the Greek industry. It is worthwhile to note that the evolution of the GRC value over the last 5 years is as follows: 0.54 (2009), 0.51 (2010), 0.77 (2011), 0.99 (2012), 0.90 (2013), 1.06 (2014). This extraordinary achievement is due to the continuous cooperation between the Greek delegation to ESA (General Secretariat for Research & Technology/GSRT), the ESA executive, delegations from other Member-States and the Large System Integrators (LSIs) of the European Space sector. Moreover, this result can be attributed: a) to the existing capabilities of the Greek Space sector (Space Cluster/Industry, Universities, Research Institutes), contributing to Greek entities being selected as contractors, and b) to ESA issuing a number of calls/tendering procedures “Restricted to Greece”, thus reserving specific activities/ contracts in favour of our country. It should be mentioned that this common effort received significant support by the two Member-States which are ESA’s biggest contributors, namely France and Germany. These two countries offered not only their strategic support and technical expertise but also the funding of jointly designated activities within specific ESA Programmes, ultimately aiming at a broader and long-term bilateral cooperation in the Space sector.
4. Alma Technologies JPEG Encoder IP Core compresses images aboard NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.