According to the report, strong research and early-stage space innovation struggle to transition to commercil scale. Key bottlenecks include a lack of public sector anchor customers, limited visibility of regional testing infrastructure, and a shortage of specialized scale-up capital for deep tech hardware.
The report was launched during the Norwegian democracy festival, Arendalsuka. About the report, senior advisor, Joonas Leppänen says:
“The findings of this report create an important foundation for our upcoming work and space-initiatives. It offers a strong knowledge base that really points to the challenges the ecosystem is facing and what we can do to create a more connected ecosystem that strengthens the space industry.”
The report presents a set of recommendations on how Nordic collaboration can best accommodate these challenges:
- Create a Nordic space capability and test infrastructure atlas to share facilities; launch challenge dialogues with public sector users to trigger pilot-to-procurement pathways; and organize space application hackathons.
- Establish cross-border demonstration programs; implement an SME testbed access voucher scheme; launch a joint space scale-up track to mobilize private co-investment; and build a stronger talent pipeline by connecting student space communities.
- Develop joint flagship missions and position the Nordic countries as a premier European test region for space-enabled civil security and dual-use preparedness.
The recommendations will play an important role in the project Space Nordic, which was launched in June.
Background
The report is developed by the Danish Technology Institute, Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and Aalto University. The report is funded by Nordic Innovation under the program ‘Nordic Forward: resilience and competitiveness for 2050’ and as a part of the tender Mapping the Nordic Space Ecosystem.
