Space Campus Noordwijk becomes NL Space Campus

 Space Campus Noordwijk becomes NL Space Campus

For the last years, Space Campus Noordwijk has steadily developed into a new meeting place for the international space sector. It has been built around existing facilities of ESA ESTEC, ESA BIC, the Galileo Reference Centre (GRC) and the Space Expo science centre as inseparable anchor points. It acts as a central place for the space community, where entrepreneurs, educational institutions, research organisations, government organisations and other stakeholders meet, share knowledge and initiate cooperation around the central theme of space knowledge, data and technology.  It is a breeding ground for innovation, start-ups and scale-ups, where students, scientists, entrepreneurs and young professionals come together and collaborate. 

The Space Campus stimulates and facilitates the exchange of knowledge between ESA ESTEC and the Galileo Reference Centre to the Dutch and international space ecosystems.

New name, new aspirations

Besides its physical location in Noordwijk , Space Campus is the gateway to the Dutch space sector and is a true European Space Hub. In the coming period these roles will be further elaborated and translated into a new branding and positioning strategy, under the new name NL Space Campus!

NL Space Campus aims to become a leading hotspot for innovative space related start-ups, scale-ups and established companies that use ESA and GRC data and services, facilitating the application of space technology and data, as well as cross-sector collaboration.

NL Space Campus will be an open innovation ecosystem in which different stakeholders come together to apply and share knowledge, enjoy synergies and accelerate growth. This is done in close cooperation with national and international governments and interest groups, such as SpaceNed.

You can see a sneak preview of the soon to be launched website here!

Beating heart of a network

In a recent interview with Innovation Origins, NL Space Campus Director Esther Peters said: “The NL Space Campus will be the beating heart of a community of entrepreneurs, educational institutions, research organizations, government organizations and other social stakeholders. The world is changing ever faster and we are all facing major challenges. Space technology offers countless possibilities for tackling these earthly challenges. Governments, knowledge institutions, and companies must therefore work together more intensively and more intelligently. The Campus is the platform for this. By stimulating and facilitating collaboration and through the mix of companies and functions – think of both R&D and business – the campus can grow into a hotspot for innovation in the application of space technology and space data.”

Space Province South Holland

The continued development of the Space Campus is partly possible thanks to the ‘Regiodeal’ in which the national government is investing 15 million euros in an International Meeting Facility at ESTEC. The Province of South Holland (8 million) and the Municipality of Noordwijk (3 million) are also investing heavily in the development of the campus. Renate Beausoleil, senior policy officer for Aerospace and Smart industry at the province, has high hopes. “Zuid-Holland is already highly regarded as a European space region, we’re not starting from scratch. But the development of the campus should give this an extra boost. This goes far beyond Noordwijk, the campus is in direct connection with other strong parts in the province: some 80% of all space activities in the Netherlands are in our province.”

Connections to top universities

Many of these activities are linked to the three South Holland universities (“LDE”: Leiden, Delft, and Erasmus Rotterdam), which have their own representative on the campus in the person of Peter Batenburg. With this position, Space Campus, together with the three institutions, aims to build a bridge between knowledge and its application. Batenburg: “Large institutes such as ESA ESTEC, SBIC, and the Galileo reference center are inextricably linked with the Space Campus. Together with the universities, the Netherlands has built up a strong international reputation in the field of space technology and research.”

Remco Timmermans

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