ESA seeks companies to commercialise inventions

Year after year, the European Space Agency - ESA creates new technologies and applications, typically filing 10 new patent applications per year.
As a result, ESA has built a portfolio of around 550 patents and patent applications to date.
Now, through a permanent open call, companies and startups from around the world can submit their ideas on how they would mature these patents, paving the way for improved commercialisation of ESA's innovations.

"The main objective of this funding call is to establish collaboration with companies, making sure that ESA's ideas are never left in a drawer," says Mercedes Sánchez Álvarez, Technology Transfer Engineer at ESA.

If companies or startups have an idea for the technical and commercial maturation of ESA inventions, they can now share this idea through OSIP. ESA is accepting applications on a rolling basis and is available to fund the maturation of these ideas with a budget of up to 175k €. An updated list of patents that companies and startups can work on can be found in the open call under "Commercial and technical maturation of ESA's inventions".