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Responsible Space Growth: Sustainability Resilience and Competitiveness for the Emerging Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Economy

Project description

Building a responsible path to the stars

Orbiting satellites and space infrastructure are becoming inseparable from modern life, powering everything from communications to emerging technologies. As activity in low Earth orbit accelerates, Europe faces mounting challenges such as environmental strain on terrestrial and orbital ecosystems, growing competition from global players, and the risk of technical failures or security threats. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SPARE project aims to turn these challenges into opportunities. Focusing on sustainability, resilience, and competitiveness, SPARE promotes responsible growth in space. Its world-class training programme will equip the next generation of engineers and scientists to integrate technological innovation with environmental stewardship, regulatory insight, and economic strategy, ensuring that Europe’s expanding presence in orbit is safe, sustainable, and strategically strong.

Objective

Humanity is presently at the brink of a new era in space development likely to irreversibly bind our daily lives to assets in orbit and beyond. Starting from the paradigm of 6G wireless networks that in the next decade will release cellular services from spaceborne base stations, a diverse range of sectors including energy, materials, nano, bio and pharma will extend activities into LEO orbit. Space is thus evolving into an ever-greater strategic priority for the European society, economy, security and sovereignty. Despite World-class capacities that Europe enjoys, present trends present substantial threats for the future. Current practice poses unviable burden on the terrestrial and orbital environments. Competition from established and emerging players threatens the European position, whilst ease of access is turning space into an increasingly contested domain. The vision of SPARE is to underpin Responsible Growth for space along three interconnected innovation objectives:
- Sustainability: ensure space uses natural resources responsibly across terrestrial & orbital environments
- Resilience: embed in space systems security, safety & robustness against technical failures and malicious acts
- Competitiveness: create value proposition amid fast evolving industry, market & regulatory landscapes
Adopting a broad perspective where engineering and technological innovation are intimately linked with the environment, regulation and the economy, SPARE delivers a World-class training programme addressing critical bottlenecks along the pathways to sustainable and resilient growth of the European space sector.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN-ID - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral Networks - Industrial Doctorates

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-DN-01

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Coordinator

HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 755 599,26
Address
RICCARTON
EH14 4AS Edinburgh
United Kingdom

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Region
Scotland Eastern Scotland Edinburgh
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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Participants (7)

Partners (1)

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