Tuesday, 08 June 2010, 14.00h
The Round Table on GNSS/Navigation, chaired by Pierpaolo CAMPOSTRINI, Director of CORILA reviewed the current status of the European GNSS programmes from a regional perspective. The discussion looked in particular at the main reasons for an apparent lack of applications and the capabilities of European regions to contribute building a dynamic GNSS-market place. For more details, please refer to the concept paper.
Following an exchange of views and reflecting on ongoing activities all participants agreed that Europe needs to invest more in GNSS-applications. Being themselves involved in regional GNSS-activities and having first hand experience on the space market, the participants debated on what could be done to boost the development of GNSS applications and services and presented successful regional GNSS-practices.
FELIX BELLIDO, Deputy Managing Director of the Madrid Region Aerospace Cluster, one of the largest clusters in Europe, presented the Madrid Galileo Plan as one of the strategic initiatives of his region. With this 7-year regional program Madrid tries to pave the ground for more business opportunities in the aerospace sector.
Douglas Watson, brought GRACE (GNSS Research and Applications Centre of Excellence), a centre of excellence in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) into the debate as an example how the East Midlands try to support the development and use of satellite applications.
HERVE BURET, space industry representative, speaking on behalf of Thales Alenia Space, one of NEREUS Associate Members, highlighted the need to secure a long term budget for innovation. Michel Bosco, representative of the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry stressed that Europe needs a strong push forward. In his view not only space regions are addressed to take a share but all European regions can contribute to this endeavour by using satellite technologies such as EGNOS and Gallileo. EGNOS is already in place and ready to be exploited for manifold areas.
