Copernicus Incubation Programme

Downstream companies, in particular entrepreneurs and start-ups, are a fundamental link between the EU space programme and end users. The European Commission is launching the Copernicus incubation Programme to promote start-up creation and growth in the Copernicus downstream sector.

The objective of this call is to organise the Copernicus Incubation Programme, which aims at financing the incubation of 20 start-ups in Europe every year for 3 years.

The beneficiary of this call will be in charge of organising a regular and open selection of the best start-ups in Europe that use Copernicus and which want to be incubated. Each start-up will need to demonstrate that it is backed by one of the best start-up support programme in Europe (an incubator, an accelerator, etc.) with a track record of successfully accompanying innovative young companies, not necessarily in the space sector. The support programme must commit to including the start-up if the latter is selected in the Copernicus Incubation Programme. The functioning of the Copernicus Incubation Programme is summarised in the figure below.

Submission should be done on the electronic submission system (link to be posted soon). This call closes on 19 April 2017 at 17:00 (Brussels time).

Questions about this call should be sent to GROW-I3@ec.europa.eu. The answers will be provided on this website on a regular basis.