Industry Engagement

Marcell Tessenyi (Blue Skies Space Ltd) and Jeronimo Bernard-Salas (ACRI-ST) discuss the mutual benefits for industry and academia in developing collaborations.

Read article in the fully formatted PDF of the Europlanet Magazine.

Synergistic relationships between academic and industrial communities can have enormous benefits, from enhancing the impact of projects by broadening the scope of innovation to opening up new opportunities in funding and career development. However, for many academics, knowing where to start when approaching industry engagement can be challenging.

The Europlanet Industry and Policy Teams sent out a survey in August 2021 to find out about the experiences and priorities of the planetary community in working with companies outside academia. Results showed an interest from the respondents in becoming involved in collaborations, but a perceived lack of opportunities for engagement and limited awareness on industry capabilities relevant to research.

*Example results from the Industry survey. This question related to reasons respondents gave for for not engaging with industry.*

Over the course of the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) project, the Industry Team was tasked with helping Europlanet to foster industry-academic interactions. Activities included a set of networking events and online support tools, which include a large, pan-European industry database. With the help of the planetary community across Europe, the database is now available to Europlanet Society members. The online database is designed to help planetary scientists find companies that could be relevant to their research areas, with filters allowing the selection of companies across ESA’s Technology Domains and per country.

*Bridging the industry-academic divide. Credit: fauxels/Pexels*

The database will also be of value to companies that are seeking visibility among the planetary science community of academics, either for specialised areas of expertise (partnerships, consultancies) or for potential recruitment opportunities.

Europlanet would like to invite academics, researchers and companies to help expand the database. Please contact industry@europlanet-society.org for additional information or to provide details of companies that might be relevant for inclusion.

An older version of this article was published in Issue 1 of the Europlanet Magazine

This article is featured in the Europlanet 2024 RI Special Issue of the Europlanet Magazine