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The creation of two new offices at Harwell – the International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC) and the ESA Business Incubator Centre (BIC) - are exciting new developments, which show the health and strength of the UK space industry.

ISIC is a unique partnership between the public and private sectors, which will bring together industry, national laboratories, academia, international space agencies and government to maximise and exploit space research and technology.

ISIC will be based at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and will spearhead the UK’s national growth in the global space market. ISIC’s initial focus will be on understanding and countering climate change, ensuring the security of space systems and services, and exploiting and visualising data generated by Earth observation satellites. While future areas for ISIC will include robotics and exploration, novel power sources and integrated applications.

Colin Paynter, CEO of Astrium UK said; “ISIC has enormous potential in creating a virtuous circle of upstream to downstream space activities, and with the right conditions it can be an ideal environment in which to grow our existing successful space companies and also to create the major space companies of tomorrow.”

At the same time, an agreement has also recently been reached between STFC and ESA to run the ESA BIC at Harwell. The ESA BIC Harwell will complement the work of ISIC by offering a unique and intensive package of technical expertise and business support for up to 10 start-up businesses a year. The centre at Harwell is the fifth ESA has set up.

ESA’s pan European BIC centres allow entrepreneurs to set up companies at their own risk based on a technology developed by Europe’s space industry and institutions. Among the benefits is a cash incentive scheme with up to £40,000 for intellectual property (IP) protection, design, prototyping and market studies. Since the end of 2004 ESA has successfully managed a business incubation programme, during which 55 start-up companies have been established.

David Southwood, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration who signed the agreement for ESA said during his talk at the event; “In the UK, academia and industry are working together productively, rather than as separate elements. We’re setting up here to learn how things are done in the UK and to spread that across Europe”.

More information about ISIC can be found on the ISIC website.

More information about ESA’s BIC can be found on the STFC website and the ESA website.