Who can submit to ESA OSIP?

Companies, universities and research organisations from eligible ESA member states — depending on the specific campaign or channel. Individual campaigns state their own eligibility.

What funding does OSIP lead to?

Accepted ideas route into ESA Discovery activities: early technology development studies, co-funded research and similar early-TRL instruments. Ticket sizes are study-scale, not product-scale.

What is ESA OSIP?

The Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) is ESA's entry point for novel ideas from outside the agency. Through open campaigns (themed challenges) and standing channels, OSIP collects proposals for early-stage research and technology development and routes accepted ideas into ESA Discovery funding instruments.

How it works

You submit an idea against a campaign or channel on the platform. ESA reviewers iterate with promising submitters, and accepted ideas are implemented through ESA's early-technology instruments — typically system studies or early technology development activities at low TRL.

OSIP is the right door when your concept is too early for tenders: it funds exploring whether an approach works at all, not building a product. For deep-tech founders coming out of research, an OSIP-funded study is often the first ESA line on the CV.

Official source: ideas.esa.int. Campaign themes rotate — check what is currently open.

Written by Tymofiy Badikov, founder of VIRA.space (Virtual Innovation Research Assistant) — operated by Space Tech Gateway Sp. z o.o., Kraków Technology Park. VIRA tracks live European space funding calls and checks your eligibility free: see live tenders.