A new consortium of stakeholders within the Dutch space ecosystem is working with the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) to further exploit the potential of the space sector. With its winning proposal, the consortium received a two-year grant to roll out a campaign that optimizes the early stages of the entrepreneurial journey in the Dutch space sector; from idea to startup and scale-up. Starting in 2023, the OneSpaceHub program will expand and strengthen the network in the Netherlands to establish a pathway aimed at excelling space-related talent and entrepreneurship.
A national partnership
RVO’s One Single Hub program focuses on partnerships of organizations, such as incubators, accelerators, and universities in the Netherlands that aim to improve facilities for innovative entrepreneurship. OneSpaceHub is a collaborative effort that received funding under this initiative. The project team led by NL Space Campus includes Space Business Innovation Centre Noordwijk, University of Twente, PLNT Leiden Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Aerospace Innovation Hub @TU Delft, Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Radboud University and Leiden Instrumentmakers School. The consortium is laying the groundwork for a permanent national partnership in which talents from provincial programs and different levels of education will advance into a strong space-tech and data-driven ecosystem.
Encouraging entrepreneurship
The space sector is growing rapidly worldwide. With an increasing amount of technology transfer, commercialization and data-driven solutions flowing into other industries, the space sector has become increasingly important to the broader economy.
There are several programs nationwide to support entrepreneurship in various aspects such as financing, valorization, talent and marketing. OneSpaceHub aims to make “a selection of excellent programs” more compatible, more visible and, above all, widely accessible. This will be achieved by bringing together the expertise of some of the best-performing programs in the key early stages of entrepreneurship: education, activation, pre-incubation and incubation. To this end, already existing initiatives will be linked, strengthened and expanded to make this support accessible across the country.
A unified, efficient and accessible OneSpaceHub pathway will be offered locally, hybrid (online and physical) and eventually from every province to better facilitate and encourage entrepreneurs on their growth path. The selection of complementary programs will increase the chance of success for space-related startups and scale-ups, and create an even greater pull to attract new talent, ideas, business and know-how. By connecting different local hotspots, entrepreneurs gain access to new partnerships and are better able to grow, diversify and reach new markets on a national and international scale.
More information
OneSpaceHub’s mission is to better facilitate and encourage the entrepreneurial journey from education and pre-incubation to start-up and scale-up and generate more space-related start-ups and scale-ups in the Netherlands.
General contact: Parya Pasha Zadeh (p.pasha@utwente.nl)
For more information about PLNT’s role, contact Micha Heilman, at micha@plnt.nl.
