WP3 – Productivity Growth, Entrepreneurship and R&D

Lead: Aalto University / Prof. Jaan Praks

WP3 promotes productivity growth and innovation capacity in Finland’s space economy by strengthening ecosystem development, accelerating research-to-market transfer, and supporting new business models based on AI and dual-use technologies. Building on national and European initiatives such as ESA BIC, Winter Satellite Workshop and the ESA Phi-lab Network, WP3 enhances the space value chain from upstream R&D to downstream services. 

It combines economic research and systems-level analysis to understand the macroeconomic impacts of space investments while supporting agile governance, leadership development and talent attraction in the New Space sector. 

WP3 maps pathways from ideas to scalable businesses, identifies bottlenecks in the venture pipeline, and proposes concrete actions to accelerate innovation transfer and spin-off creation, particularly in dual-use domains. It also promotes AI-driven productivity through toolkits and business model exploration with industry partners. 

Through matchmaking platforms, stakeholder engagement and collaboration guidelines, WP3 strengthens public-private uptake of innovation and positions Finland’s space ecosystem as resilient, globally connected and entrepreneurship-driven.

Main deliverables:

* Open collaboration guidelines and best practices for ecosystem development
* Matchmaking platform connecting space services with end users
* AI toolkits and AI-enabled business model exploration
* Market intelligence and macroeconomic impact analysis of New Space
* Recommendations to accelerate venture pipelines, spin-offs and dual-use innovation