CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Geographic Expansion of European and Canadian Earth Observation Services into South East Asia

THIS OPPORTUNITY IS NOW CLOSED

In the context of the project “Geographic Expansion for European and Canadian Services” being conducted under the auspices of the European Space Agency Value Adding Element (VAE), C‑CORE (www.c-core.ca) and Hatfield Consultants (www.hatfieldgroup.com) have teamed to execute a contract focused on Indonesia and Viet Nam in South East Asia. This call for proposals is being executed to investigate the expansion of European and Canadian based EO services into these two regions. The call details may be found at www.c-core.ca.

Project Background

This activity is aimed at supporting the European Value adding sector in expanding their commercial activities beyond Europe. As identified by ESA studies of the European Value adding companies (VACs), the industry is facing several challenges in growing the commercial demand for EO based services, one being a limited uptake by non-EU markets. In response to this, the ESA VAE has invited the industry to study what the opportunities are and propose activities for how they can be realized within a 5 year development action plan. C-CORE and Hatfield Consultants responded with a proposal to expand EO services into Indonesia and Vietnam.

Europe has an EO based service industry consisting of many small and a few large companies. This industry offers information services that address a wide range of thematic areas and in some cases these services are being sold to customers outside Europe. Activities aimed at engaging users and customers for these services outside Europe is within the scope of the Data User Element (DUE) and the Market Development Program (EOMD). EOMD has managed two studies aimed at characterizing the state of the European EO service industry. The first one was carried out in 2004. Key findings of this study indicated that European VACs are primarily local or nationally focused and that the presence in non-European geographic regions is limited. Revenues are primarily generated from national sources, less from European sources, and least of all from non-European sources.

The focus of the Geographic Expansion activity shall be to develop business opportunities outside Europe for the full range of European EO based services. Only mature EO based services available on a commercial basis today and using at least some European EO mission data shall be considered as candidate services to be expanded in the world geographic regions outside Europe. It is not in the scope to expand EO based services to any European countries or to develop new EO based services. The work shall take into consideration previous and ongoing activities carried out by ESA within the field of international cooperation (political, R&D, education, EO application and service development etc).

Call for Proposals

As a component of the South East Asia project, C-CORE and Hatfield Consultants have allocated a maximum budget of 75,000 Euros (total) to fund between 3-4 pilot/demonstration activities. C-CORE will be accepting short proposals (4-5 pages) from interested organizations. The deadline for submissions is 1800 hrs – Central European Time (12 noon Eastern Time) on September 30, 2010. Evaluations will be completed by the mid October 2010 and successful applicants are required to implement the project by February 28, 2011.