National Space Strategy

Summer is never a good time to elicit responses for an important consultation but nevertheless there was a call for comments on the Space Strategy for Ireland in July/August. As part of the SCSI Working Group in Earth Observation and Remote Sensing, I worked with a few other members to highlight some of the concerns we had in relation to spatial data, applications, industry potential, outreach and skills gaps. I was not surprised to see that at the follow up meet most, if not all companies had the same concerns. The downstream sector was definitely in the majority - but I got the impression that the concerns of the upstream got the better airing as the morning wore on. One thing that surprised me - I had always heard anecdotally that the upstream was doing better than down, but this seems not to be the case. 

DBEI organised and was hosted by DFF&T at the beautiful Iveagh House. Like the Korec seminars in Carton House - you spend more time gazing at the ceiling than the speaker.

Some general observations, although I'm sure this will be formally published in the near future. 

• Siloed interests abound - many people unaware of what supports and who is out there for potential collaboration.
• Lack of coordination at national level - talk of a 'space coordinating centre' was judged overkill but a single space officer to combine ESA, Copernicus and other EU info was universally agreed as important. There was an extra €500k in the budget alotted for ESA work this year, it may feed into it?
• Skills shortage - particularly at undergrad level - on both EO side and also at the engineering side on materials - i.e. space tech manufacture or RS are only single modules, rather than a full programme. Seems to be demand in the industry for those graduates - SAR skillset an EU wide shortage.
• Currently there is an overdependance on ESA for contracts - NASA, UN, H2020 other world orgs should be considered.
• Lack of a big space industry in Ireland is hampering growth - some discussion on trying to coax a large space player to Ireland, but would have to avoid hampering native industry who are currently growing.

Hopefully will lead somewhere.