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The Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) is inviting public and commercial end-user organisations to propose ideas and suggestions for new services in Critical Infrastructure as defined below. The aim is to generate ideas leading to services that will improve business performance and operations, help enforce new regulatory standards, or enable improved resilience.
The ideas will be used to help define and consolidate requirements for user-driven services supported through the IAP programme.
Critical Infrastructures
Critical Infrastructures can be defined as those handling essential goods (e.g. water, energy, food, confidential information) and/or services (e.g. health, financial transactions or resilience services). Infrastructures are critical when they represent key enablers in a large variety of economic sectors. Loss or damage of critical infrastructure would have a severe and widespread impact, e.g. disruption of supplies or services, injury or loss of human lives, risks to or destruction of the environment, breach of national security or economic interests.
Criticality is also determined by the level of endangerment the infrastructure is subject to, and by its vulnerability to such hazards. Infrastructures are particularly exposed to hazards when physically spread out, e.g. linear infrastructures such as pipelines. Hazards can be diffuse (e.g. low intensity hazards affecting infrastructure over a long period of time) or acute (e.g. sudden attacks, accidents, natural hazards). They can also be predictable (e.g. corrosion) or unpredictable (e.g. tsunami or terrorist attack).
Hazards to critical infrastructure need not only be physical. For instance, cyber attacks may damage internet-linked control systems that are related to critical infrastructures such as the electrical grid, water treatment facilities, refineries, pipelines and dams.
Critical infrastructures are most often man-made, such as power plants or airports. Yet they can also be natural. For example, wetlands are a natural infrastructure that store water and thereby mitigate floods.
Critical infrastructures typically enable the production, processing, transportation, storage or protection of essential goods, as well as the provision of basic services such as:
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Water (e.g. water pipes, treatment plants, water towers, dykes, dams, canals).
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Food (e.g. roads, warehouses, ports).
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Energy (e.g. pipelines, refineries, energy grids, power plants).
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Confidential or critically sensitive information (e.g. telecommunication infrastructure).
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Health and well-being (e.g. hospitals, waste treatment plants).
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Environmental protection (e.g. pollution prevention, CO2 storage).
Call for User Ideas
Themes that it is intended to cover in this Call for User Ideas include (but are not restricted to):
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Mitigation: Deployment of protective systems to prevent damage or disruption by resilience to hazards. For mitigation of cyber attacks this should include encryption techniques and other methods.
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Preparedness: Monitoring conditions and taking preventive actions, e.g. identification, monitoring & quantification of hazards, vulnerability and risks; infrastructure health monitoring; preventive maintenance.
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Response: Activation of emergency spare capacity to satisfy peak demand, or to back-up failed infrastructure, e.g. space telecommunications as a back-up communications infrastructure.
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Recovery: Supporting strategies minimising the propagation of negative effects caused after disruption such as evacuation of people and emergency repairs, and help in the assessment of damage caused to or by disrupted infrastructure.
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Any other promising topic.
The Call for User Ideas on Critical Infrastructure is driven purely by the users’ perspective and their needs. The ideas submitted will be used to help define and consolidate themes and priorities of future IAP projects. This may include both Feasibility Studies (through Open Competitions or Direct Negotiation), or directly through Demonstration Projects.
How to submit your ideas
You are invited to submit your ideas and suggestions by completing the online User Response Form using the link below or clicking here.
Please be assured that all inputs will be treated confidentially. Your ideas are highly valued, and will help shape the IAP programme of ESA in order to meet your needs.
For any questions related to this Call for User Ideas, please contact:
Dr Tony Sephton, Head of IAP Awareness Activities
ESA-ESTEC
Keplerlaan 1, 2200AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Email: tony [dot] sephton [at] esa [dot] int
Tel:+31 71 56 55554
Your ideas and suggestions should reach us by
30th June 2012.
The IAP Programme
The IAP programme aims at developing a range of new applications by using and integrating different space assets (Earth Observation, Navigation, Telecommunications and Human Spaceflight technologies). The activities shall result in sustainable services for the benefit of society ensured by the user-driven nature of the IAP programme.
New concepts, capabilities and a new culture are required in order to respond to a multitude of public and private needs from those actors who are not familiar with space systems, and this Call for User Ideas is targeted especially at such users.
The Member States which have subscribed to the IAP Programme are: Austria, Belgium, Czech republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The IAP programme offers different types of funding schemes based on the maturity stage of the service development, namely:
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Feasibility Studies, which provide the preparatory framework to identify, analyse and define new user-driven sustainable services.
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Demonstration Projects, which aim at establishing the basis for sustainable integrated applications. Demonstration Projects are carried out on the basis of partnership with ESA, and have the ultimate goal of validating the operational viability of the proposed solution.
Feasibility Studies can be supported by ESA up to a level of 100% (depending on the procurement process), and Demonstration Projects up to 50%. More detailed information on the IAP programme and relevant funding mechanisms can be found in the IAP Beginners Guide.
