NEREUS organised jointly with the European Space Agency, and Wallonia region for its members a 1-day Regional Symposium at the ESA-ESEC location in Transinne/Wallonia on the 2nd of June 2022. Building around regional best practices and success stories, the event aimed at providing regions with an opportunity to learn from each other while sharing knowledge and expertise about space assets that were a breakthrough in regions. Discussions around regional space assets and capabilities contributed to make regional ecosystems more transparent and strengthening links between with key space experts and initiate ideas for cooperation. Most importantly, as the space sector is growing more and more, the event served as a paradigm for regional stakeholders to better equip themselves with the necessary tools in view of the development of their regional space communities, regional space strategies and future activities.
Institutional and political representatives opened the Regional Symposium and expressed their support for the initiative, namely Hugo Maree, European Space Agency, Head of Education Office, Rafał Siemianowski, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Poland to the Kingdom of Belgium. NEREUS-president Thierry Cotelle (Member of the Regional Council Occitanie) and Georges Cottin, conseiller géneral of IDELUX, the regional development agency of province Luxembourg emphasized the importance of interregional exchange and partnering. In support of this, two NEREUS-Vice presidents, Vito Bardi, the president of the Basilicata region (IT) and Marshal Władysław Ortyl, the president of the Polish region Podkarpackie outlined the dimension of space for the regional and economic development in their respective region given their role as political and economic decision-makers in their regions.
In this context, the regions of Hesse (DE), Apulia (IT), Basilicata (IT), Mazovia (PL), and Wallonia (BE) volunteered to present their best practices on the use of space in the round table “Space applications adoption by regional authorities”. Members had the opportunity to present concrete space applications in a plethora of regional domains such as cybersecurity, agriculture, critical infrastructure, entrepreneurship, education, transport, etc.
Moreover, in the round table “How to build a harmonious regional development based on Space assets” many companies including the two space clusters, TeRN (Basilita, IT) and DTA (Puglia, IT) highlighted the importance of the commercialisation of space in the framework of sustainability, competitiveness, digitalisation, and economic growth at local and regional level. To quote two examples, the Grottaglie Airport Test Bed in Puglia (IT) and the living catalogue of product and services of the Basilicata Space Sector in Basilicata (IT). The round tables were moderated by Ms Roya Ayazi, NEREUS Secretary General and Michel Stassart, Deputy Managing Director for Space Activities (Skywin).
During the event, a selected group of regional representatives from Germany and Poland and board members (Mr. Wolfgang Wolf and Ms Perdita de Buhr) together with Ms Margarita Chrysaki (NEREUS Comm/Project officer) had the chance to visit the in-orbit testing facilities for Galileo’s (Europe’s global navigation satellite system) space infrastructure and a Galileo sensor station.
In the evening NEREUS organized jointly with its cooperation partners and the two Polish member regions Mazovia and Podkarpackie a Space Business Networking Evening hosted by the Embassy of Poland in Brussels on invitation of the Polish Ambassador H.E Rafal Siemianowski. The main objective was to stimulate exchanges and partnerships between Polish and Belgian space companies and relevant European space stakeholder. The idea was to incentivize discussions of innovative ideas and building contacts for future strategies and activities. The event was supported and addressed at the political level by H.E Rafal Siemianowski, Ambassador of Poland to the Kingdom of Belgium and Marshal Ortyl, NEREUS-Vice President, Marshal of Podkarpackie Region, both highlighting the added value of interregional partnerships and co-operations at a European scale in view of global challenges.
Remarkably, it should be noted that more than 60 participants (representatives of politics, administration, business, SMEs, research, and space clusters) attended both events. Below you may find all presentations. More images are available after request.
Presentations:
Eric Giraud, Directeur Général Aerospace Valley, (Link)
Giuseppe Acierno, President of DTA (Distretto Tecnologico Aerospaziale, Apulia), (Link)
Nicky Carlomagno, SATNAV Service Manager, Telespazio, (Link)
Pascal Rogiest, Chief Strategy Officer at Rhea Group, (Link)
Andreas Kanstein, Managing Director cesah, (Link)
Mariusz Kacprzak, Head of Remote Sensing Division, (Link)
Antonio Colangelo (President of the Basilicata Aerospace Cluster) and Prof. Valerio Tramutoli (Professor of Satellite Remote Sensing of Environment at University of Basilicata), Raffaele Santangelo, Deputy Program Manager for TeRN at Enterprises Network «Mille Infrastrutture (Link)
Eric Hallot, ISSeP and Nathalie Stephenne, SPW (public services of Wallonia), (Link)
Photos (link– please download within 6 days).