Incubation Centre has opened in Portugal, ready to help entrepreneurs and start-up companies take space technology and services into non-space areas such as health, transport and energy.
Over the coming five years, the centre will help 30 Portuguese start-up companies to get their businesses going, creating at least 120 local high-tech jobs.
The companies will receive €1.5 million as seed incentive and be able to tap into an additional €7 million.
ESA incubator in Coimbra
The new incubator is managed by the University of Coimbra’s Instituto Pedro Nunes, or IPN, in collaboration with Science and Technology Park at University of Porto and DNA Cascais, a non-profit organisation that fosters entrepreneurship in Cascais and the greater Lisbon region.
With 18 years’ experience in business incubation, the institute has supported more than 200 technology and innovation projects.
At the inauguration on 5 November during the fifth Portuguese Space Forum, the management agreements were signed by Franco Ongaro, ESA Director of Technical and Quality Management, and Prof. Teresa Mendes, IPN President of the Board of Directors.
Incubator launch
Carlos Cerqueira, IPN’s Head of Innovation, noted that the new centre “has unique characteristics since it promotes the creation of start-ups based on state-of-the-art technologies tested in space applications, providing these new companies with the potential to create ‘disruptive’ innovations tailored for the global markets.”
The event was also attended by Portugal’s Minister of Economy, António Pires de Lima, Minister of Education and Science, Nuno Crato, Rector of the University of Coimbra, João Gabriel, and Vice President of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (the national funding agency for science, technology and innovation), Pedro Carneiro.
Prof. Mendes added that the incubator helps “to accomplish IPN’s mission to support the technology transfer process and to stimulate the creation of new economic activity and skilled jobs in Portugal.”
Portuguese industry steps up in space
The Forum also saw a contract signed with Portugual’s Tekeve for the intersatellite communications link on ESA’s Proba-3 formation-flying mission.
The two satellites will accurately hold position at a distance of 150 m or more.
This contract highlights a key technology contributionby Portuguese companies in a very advanced mission.
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