Special Conditions and Requirements:

Business and Scaling-up potential: The Economic Operator must demonstrate high business potential and clear scaling‑up capability, including credible prospects for sustained growth.

Technology Readiness level: The Economic Operator must demonstrate that its products or services reach a minimum TRL/ASRL 7 (at subsystem level) at activity start.

Support from national delegation: The Agency can only consider tenders from companies or organisations residing in ESA Member States, Cooperating or Associate Member States having duly declared their participation in the programme and their interest in the subject Tender Action. 

To date, these are: Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia have subscribed.

ESA’s co-funding can reach a maximum level of 80% as detailed in the table below, but the size and nature of any potential co-funding is subject to authorisation from the supporting national delegation(s).

SME - Small and medium-sized enterprises (i.e. enterprises fulfilling the criteria defined in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003 (2003/361/EC) or as updated).

Decreasing co-funding support: The financial support provided to Economic Operators will gradually decrease in a manner directly proportional to the number of contracts they are awarded within a given thematic campaign. This will be reflected in the co-funding allocated to companies for each supported activity, with the maximum eligible amount granted only for the first contract and a mandatory reduction applied to subsequent contracts. 

All proposals will be kept strictly confidential, however by submitting an Outline Proposal, applicants agree that the information may be shared with the relevant National Delegation(s).

Evaluation Criteria

As concerns the evaluation of your Outline and Full Proposal by ESA, please note that the quality of your Proposal will be evaluated on the basis of the following evaluation criteria and associated: 

1. Understanding of the Programme Objectives

• Compliance with the call objectives and requirements;
• Assessment of the company’s business and scaling up potential;
• Justification on how the specific activity supports the scaling up of the company;
• Justification of the cost of the activity in line with market conditions;

2. Technical Viability of the Activity

• Description of the proposed products/services, the status (TRL/ASRL) and the benefits for their customers in regard to competitors and alternative technology (i.e., technical market-fit);
• Details of the technical implementation of the activity, and the sustainability of the scaling up of the product;
• Assessment of technical risks and credibility of the risk mitigation actions; 

3. Adequacy of the project approach

• Project management plan, Meeting plan, deliverables and schedule;
• Adequacy of the work packages;
• Relevant experience of the management personnel and completeness of the team within the value chain;

4. Financial structure of the Proposed Activity

• Credibility of the proposed co-funding scheme and the activity cost;
• Correctness of the PSS forms;
• Adequacy of the overall financial plan of the commercial agreement and compliance to ESA MPP;