Call for Proposals: Management of the ESA BSGN Agri-Food Industry Accelerator
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The European Space Agency (ESA) invites proposals from qualified entities to lead the Business in Space Growth Network (BSGN) Agri-Food Industry Accelerator. This initiative leverages the unique microgravity environment to foster commercial innovation in the agriculture and food markets.
In light of fast-development of commercially-driven R&D projects in microgravity environment, ESA is seeking to identify and appoint an external entity as the managing partner which will be responsible for operating the BSGN Agri-Food Industry Accelerator. The selected entity (or consortium) will support commercial R&D projects in accessing space microgravity environment to develop, test and commercialise their solutions.
The agriculture and food sectors can explore microgravity as a unique R&D environment to accelerate innovation in several high-impact areas. These include plant resilience and seed germination under stress conditions, microbial fermentation and the production of nutrient-rich or functional ingredients, cellular agriculture for cultivated meat and dairy analogues, and food packaging and preservation technologies.
The BSGN Accelerators are strategically relevant for the advancement of ESA’s Human and Robotic Exploration strategy (Explore2040) as they support demand generation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) market and thereby facilitate the transition from the ISS to the commercially-driven post-ISS era.
Lead the Future of Agri-Food Innovation with ESA’s BSGN Industry Accelerator
By leading the full lifecycle of the BSGN Industry Accelerator for Agri-Food, the selected entity will:
- Deliver Market Assessment on the underlying agri-food market segments which shall serve as a precondition for the subsequent preparation and publication of the Call for Projects
- Scouting for promising commercial projects in the targeted market segments
- Launch competitive Calls on the ESA platform (OSIP) to identify and support relevant projects
- Evaluate, together with ESA experts, and select the best ones
- Facilitate access to LEO, to the International Space Station (ISS), and on other microgravity LEO platforms and commercial services (e.g. free-flyers) via ESA and commercial service providers
- Provide technical, business and investment readiness support to the projects that will be selected in order to fulfil the Decision Gate requirements in order to allow the in-orbit experiments and demonstration
- Monitor the implementation of the projects’ experiments/demonstration in LEO for the ones which successfully unlock ESA approval and co-funding)
- Build and maintain a stakeholder community relevant for the targeted market segments
- Take part in events and outreach activities in coordination with ESA
- Ensure proper monitoring, documentation and reporting of outcomes
ESA plans to allocate €1.1M of funding for the BSGN Industry Accelerator for Agri-food. Part of it will be allocated directly to the managing partner to cover the costs and effort needed to execute all the Accelerator’s activities. The other part will be available for the projects selected in the Accelerator, to support them in preparing and executing their experiments and demonstrations under microgravity conditions.
Do you believe you have what it takes to lead the BSGN Agri-Food Industry Accelerator? Learn more about this unique opportunity and apply on the OSIP platform.
Timelines & Submission
Call is open to applications between 1 July and 12 September – You can apply via the OSIP platform.
Evaluation by ESA and shortlisted candidates are expected to be notified by October 2025.
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to submit their full proposal via an ESA Restricted Fixed Call for Proposals (RCP) published on ESA-star and will be requested to submit a detailed full proposal via ESA’s ESA-star system.
The ESA-star RCP package is expected to be released by the end of October 2025 and close by the end of November 2025.
It is expected to have the selected entity to be announced by end of the year 2025.
For more information, reach out by e-mail: bsgn@esa.int
