Clusters waving the flag to the internationalisation of European SMEs taking advantage of the cross-sectoral dimension of Earth observation for Blue Growth market (SpaceWave)

Results expected

The SpaceWave project specifically aims at:

• Defining the thematic areas that may poses greater potential for Earth Observation application in particular taking advantage of the Copernicus Marine Environment Service (CMEMS). The international market trends of Blue Growth will be examined to position targeted applications.
• Defining the targeted countries that may poses greater potential for Earth Observation, in particular CMEMS and Blue Growth services and applications based on their commercial potential and already existing business connections of Space/Blue growth clusters with international actors, in the targeted countries.
• Identifying the actors (earth observation based solutions providers and blue growth end-users) that will be involved in the development of the diversification strategies.
• Selecting a number of space actors coupled with blue growth end-users for the implementation of the strategies.
• Assessing the export potential, for the selected space actors, based on the long-term plans and internal capabilities to perform exports.
• Finding the complementarities to allow complete offers (i.e. consolidated value chains). Indeed, to deliver an EO service, some technical partnerships between EO and blue growth actors may be necessary before targeting any commercial agreements.
• Building a roadmap for mid-term actions to be undertaken in the internationalisation plan. Existing international connections will be cultivated, acting as springboards for European space actors’ internationalisation.
• Strengthening the action of the SpaceWave ESCP with the creation of a partnership agreement that will give a legal frame to the follow-ups.
• Collaborating with other actions dealing with SMEs business deployment.
• Identifying and initiating contacts with other European clusters in EO and Blue Growth sectors that could be interested in enlarging the SpaceWave community in the implementation phase of SpaceWave joint internationalization strategy.

Thus, SpaceWave will constitute a pilot for the acceleration of EO for Blue Growth, in particular for the CMEMS, which can be replicated at a larger scale to include other European clusters and their members, notably SMEs users of CMEMS.