NEREUS General Assembly 2013

The General Assembly, which is the yearly main occasion for the network-community to debate on the network strategy as well as past and future activities, was this year the opportunity to learn more on the new EU Space Industrial Policy and its contribution to the Europe 2020 Strategy.

In this line, the welcome speech by NEREUS President Alain Bénéteau highlighted the importance of the new EU Space Industrial Policy and its impact on regions and regional actors. Radomir Jansky, Space Policy Unit of the European Commission, took the floor to present the main aspects and goals of the EC communication. In a moderated debate the NEREUS community and invited space representatives (Committee of the Regions, European Space Agency, EUROSPACE and the Association of the European Regions) to share their views hereafter.

The afternoon session was dedicated to the network strategy debate and presentation of the NEREUS working groups’ activities.

Roya Ayazi, NEREUS Secretary General reported on the network activities in 2012/13 and gave an overview of the planned main events and actions for next year. Further to this, the participants received an illustrative annual activity report 2012.

Christian Bruns, NEREUS Vice-President, while presenting the feedback of the past strategy consultation 2012, kicked off interventios of the (co-)chair (s) of the NEREUS-working groups. The WG terms of reference and 2013/2014 work plan can be downloading in the free access pages of the WG available through here.

Please find below the PPT presented at the AG:

• EO/Copernicus WG by Valerio Tramutoli;

• GNSS WG by Pierpaolo Campostrini;

• Technologies from Space Exploration WG by Richard Ambrosi;

• Communication Education and Training WG by Martina Hilger and Michel Bousquet

A short debate was then started among the network community on how to improve the work and structure of the working groups. Feedbacks were collected and soon distributed among the members for more inputs and contributions.

The final session was dedicated to the statutory affairs. In particular ammendments to the statutes and the election/reconfimr of the members of the Management Board. The following NEREUS members were elected/reconfirmed as MB-members: