It is very easy to track your ideas. My Dashboard gives you an overview of all your activity within the system. You see a list of all activities requested from you. Whether you would like to submit a draft idea or have been invited to participate in a review, you will see it here. To get an overview of your latest activity just open your user profile and have a look at the Activity tab.

Comments to ideas are visible to all idea authors, the campaign managers, idea coaches and evaluators. If an idea is submitted openly visible (not Private/Commercial in Confidence) then automatically also all comments are openly visible.

Comments in the Tab "Private Discussion" remain always only visible to all idea authors, the channel managers and idea coaches.

By posting User Content, the Users irrevocably grant ESA (whether or not ESA is the Organiser of the Campaign or Channel) and the Organiser (if different from ESA) – without a formal declaration required – a free of charge, perpetual, worldwide and transferable right to use the relevant Content for any purpose related to the operation of OSIP, and conduct of Campaigns and/or Channels, including the rights to:

• edit, reproduce and store the user content on their servers as well as to display, share or otherwise make it available publicly (e.g. by displaying the content on OSIP);
• authorise the use (including the exercise of the rights mentioned above) by any evaluation panel, expert, on-site contractor, advisor or any third party acting for ESA and/or the organiser.

If a user removes content they have previously posted on OSIP, the above rights of use and exploitation shall lapse for further use. However, ESA shall be entitled to retain copies for backup and/or verification purposes and for the purpose of managing any formality triggered by the termination of the access to OSIP and/or participation in the Campaign or Channel. 

Draft Idea:

An idea is in draft status if you have entered a new idea but not yet clicked on submit but instead on ‘save as draft’. Draft ideas are only visible to the idea authors.

Submitted Idea:

An idea can be submitted during a Campaign or Channel’s idea submission phase. A submitted idea can be marked as Private/Commercial in Confidence (only visible to the idea author(s), ESA and the evaluators) or non-confidential (visible to everyone who has access to the Campaign).

In general, if an idea is marked "public", it is visible to the public. If an ideas is marked "confidential" it is only visible for the relevant ESA staff and evaluators. However depending on the Campaign/Channel information might be made public at a later stage. Please refer to the terms of each Campaign/Channel for more information.

After submitting an idea, the confidentiality settings cannot be changed any more. In case of questions, please use the discussion board below the idea to get in contact with your Campaign/Channel Manager.

Congratulations! Please see the Campaign Details to learn more about the concrete next steps. The following explanation shall provide a rough guideline for the standard procedure on the Platform, but will always be overruled by any specific details given in the Campaign or Channel description.

If you participated to a "Discovery" Campaign or Channel and your idea has been selected, ESA experts evaluated your idea as having high innovation potential and would like to further look into it. Legal entity eligible to do business with ESA (see Article 18 of the ESA Contracting Regulations): 

• You will receive guidance on how to proceed regarding the drafting of a proposal.
• Further you will receive a link to the corresponding esastar space to complete the contractual process

If you log on for the first time, please consider entering your personal data, such as a photo and skills. On the title bar, click your user picture, and open your profile. On the profile page, at the top, click the icon to open the side bar. Click Edit Profile, and enter your data. Open the side bar, and click Preferences. Here you can change personal settings, such as for email notifications. Check how your user profile will appear to other users: click View Profile.

OSIP stores personal data for display purposes. For example, if a user submits an idea, he/she will be shown as contributor with his/her name and picture. Clicking on the name will lead to the user’s profile which might contain more information. The name and picture will also be shown on other pages throughout the application, such as in lists and tables, or as the contact person for Campaigns.

For more information, please refer to OSIP's Data Protection and Privacy Policy.

OSIP account deletion

If you would like to delete your account from OSIP, please go to your profile and click "edit profile" where you will find a checkbox "REQUEST ANONYMIZATION OF USER DATA". Please note, that anonymization of your account is not reversible and will delete all links of your profile to ideas, comments or other content you produced. The content you entered will remain on the platform.

This depends on the channel and campaign, therefore please carefully read the Campaign/Channel description.

For all “discovery” campaigns and channels, which are funded by the Discovery element of the basic activities, and thus the mandatory programme of ESA, there is no need for a letter of support from national delegation. In case of the co-funded research activities e.g., authors need to show a support letter from the university.

Certain Campaigns will request an ESA Entity Number which can be received upon registration with ESA-Star.

The Member States of the Agency have made it mandatory for the Agency to register economic operators wishing to do business with the Agency. Economic operators wishing to do business with the Agency but not yet registered as potential Tenderer, are requested to complete the online questionnaire on the “esa-star registration”website (https://esastar-emr.sso.esa.int/). 

Any entity, at the time when a tender is submitted, should at least have already completed the “Light Registration”as described in the following “esa-star”Registration User Manual: 

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/business_with_esa/CG-EM-ORR-S-16_End_User_Manual_v1.2.pdf. 

The registration as an ESA Entity includes the obligation to subsequently fill in the Agency Questionnaire and its yearly updating. Failure to provide or update the required information may result in EMITS non-public part access being blocked.

Further information on the registration process can be found on the Industry Portal pages available at: http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Business_with_ESA/How_to_do/esa-star_Registration_Process. 

Please note that prior to the signature of a Contract the ESA Entity must have completed the "Full Registration" process in "esa-star".

All Campaigns and Channels you see on the start page are open for you and if "Idea submission" is still running, you can participate.

In case you are search your drafts or ideas and you don't find the Campaign/Channel anymore visible or you don't remember which Campaign or Channel it was belonging to. The best point to find out about all your contributions is in "My Dashboard".

Overview of ESA's programmes:

• The Open Discovery Ideas Channel on the start page is available for all novel and disruptive ideas for new research or study activities with a low TRL level.
• GSTP: The General Support Technology Programme (GSTP) Announcement of Opportunity for market-oriented activities (Ref. AO7935) is an open call for proposals. Outline proposals can be submitted anytime via the newly established GSTP Element 2 "Make" OSIP channel. The activities in the programme aim to strengthen worldwide competitiveness of industry within ESA Member States. For assessments that will help prepare and de-risk potential development activities consider the GSTP Element 1 "De-risk" OSIP channel. (overview of 3 elements of GSTP)
• InCubed: Investing in Industrial Innovation in Earth Observation (‘InCubed’) offers an open call for European businesses to apply for financial and technical support for industrial activities with commercial potential. Through InCubed, companies developing innovative systems, components and products in the Earth observation business sector can approach ESA at any time for support to make their venture technically viable and commercially competitive. InCubed has an end-to-end scope and so activities can be upstream such as satellites, constellations and instruments or downstream such as big data analytics, for example. The Incubed OSIP channel for outline proposals can be found here.
• Earth Observation Support to Science: An optional programme currently subscribed to by 14 ESA Member States, providing scientific support for both future and on-going missions, by taking a proactive role in the formulation of new mission concepts and of the related scientific agenda, by offering a multi-mission support to the scientific use of ESA Earth observation missions data and to the promotion of the achieved results.
• ARTES Open Call for Ideas: The Advanced Research In Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) programme offers an invitation to submit ideas for long-term preliminary studies and technology development-related activities. To submit ideas, you are requested to fill in a limited questionnaire using the online form. The call is issued to gather valuable input from the satellite communication industry and experts to help ESA establish relevant work plans for the Future Preparations and Advanced Technology elements of the ARTES programme to meet future satellite communication needs. The ARTES COMPETITIVENESS & GROWTH Channel is dedicated to the development, verification and demonstration of products for the satellite telecommunications market.
• NAVISP: The main objective of NAVISP is to facilitate the generation of Satellite Navigation/PNT innovative propositions with participating states and their industry, in coordination with the EU and its institutions. The programme supports European industry in succeeding in the highly competitive and rapidly-evolving global market for satellite navigation, and more broadly PNT technologies and services, while supporting participating states in enhancing their national objectives and capabilities in the sector. Especially the NAVISP Element 1 open call for ideas on innovative PNT concepts, innovative use of PNT space based solutions and promising techniques for PNT to be proofed might be of interest as well as the NAVISP Element 2: Competitiveness Channel and the NAVISP Element 3 Channel
• Research Announcements for Human Spaceflight and Exploration: ESA research announcements are the official access routes for institutional users to use research facilities managed by ESA's Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration. The Science Department of ESA’s Human Spaceflight and Exploration Directorate undertook an exercise to create a new strategy, focusing on a set of newly-defined goals to positively shape its research programme and maximise research. The roadmaps can be found here.
• Commercialisation gateway: Cross-directorate ESA-wide single interface to new external actors in the downstream sector, raising awareness of opportunities for commercial research and applications involving space, and creating links between new and emerging business sectors. In this context, the term 'downstream' refers to activities based on space technology, and/or utilisation of a space-derived system in a space and non-space environment that may result in an application, product or service to the benefit of the European society and economy. The ScaleUP INVEST - ESA Marketplace Channel aims at boosting commercialisation in the European space sector and to support the development of scale-up companies on upstream and downstream new and emerging markets to achieve sustained commercial growth. The competitiveness segment in ESA's Space Safety Programme on the other hand aims at developing the space safety market and at exploiting commercialisation dimensions.
• With Boost! ESA is offering a lean and flexible partnership framework to commercially oriented entrepreneurs and their consortia to help turning new and innovative space transportation service concepts into commercial reality.

You can only edit entries that exist with you as author or co-author and that are in the phases "draft", "qualification" or "community discussion".

To edit an entry, please click in the upper right on the "menu" (...) and "edit idea" or klick "e" on your keyboard while you have your idea open in your browser.

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Bidder Code

The ESA Bidder Code clearly identifies all ESA partners that are eligible to do business with ESA. The ESA Bidder Code can be obtained after registration on esa-star.

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Discovery Element

ESA’s Discovery Element is implementing Studies, System Studies, Early Technology Development Activities and Research Co-Sponsorship activities via OSIP. It is at the beginning of ESA’s innovation chain and preparing future technologies and missions for ESA. You can find more information here

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Early Technology Development Activity

An activity type implemented through ESA’s Discovery Element The emphasis of “Novel Technology Development Activities” is on novel activities that address low TRL technology developments with potential interest to space applications. This includes activities, as done in the past in the ITI scheme, covering a.o. risk reduction, proof of concept and technology developments up to prototype level with potential customer interests. Early technology development activities have budgets between 50 and 175 k€.

ESA Bidder Code

The ESA Bidder Code clearly identifies all ESA partners that are eligible to do business with ESA. The ESA Bidder Code can be obtained after registration on esa-star.

ESA Memberstate

ESA has 22 Member States. The national bodies responsible for space in these countries sit on ESA’s governing Council: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Canada also sits on the Council and takes part in some projects under a Cooperation Agreement. Slovenia is an Associate Member. Seven other EU states have Cooperation Agreements with ESA: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia.
For up to date information, please refere the official ESA portal

-N-

Novelty

An Idea is novel if it is new compared to published concepts, techniques or processes. Novelty might also include applying an existing, described, published concept in a new context.

-O-

OSIP

ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform. OSIP should severe as a platform for ESA to get new innovative ideas from its partners and the public. Selected ideas from OSIP might get followed up by ESA and implemented via a contract with one of ESA’s industrial or academic partners.

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Research Co-Sponsorship

ESA co-funded activities for research activities (e.g. PhD, postdoc, etc.) in cooperation with European universities. Experience has shown that very innovative ideas are often generated by universities. Activities under this heading, lasting between 6 months and 3 years with budgets from typically 20 to 90k€, including the co-funding of PhDs (former NPI initiative).

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Study

A Study is a precursor activity for technology developments or to assess the feasibility of systems for space, with budgets of typically 20-100k€ per study. The emphasis of studies is on the novelty of the concept.

System Study

A system study is a special case of a study and looks into the complete design of a space mission including the design of the spacecraft main systems and the mission profile. It identifies the mission needs, science performance goals, safety and operations constraints as well as create initial technical requirements specification. A system Study is in the in the terms of the ECSS standards performed during Phase 0.

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TRL

Technical Readiness Level. Please see here for more information.

Platform Notifications

Certain actions trigger automatic emails from the platform to idea or campaign followers, idea owners, evaluators or campaign managers depending on idea status, confidentiality setting, etc.

Important automatic notifications are e.g.:

• Message to Invitees: New Campaign/Channel launched (If set up in Campaign/Channel settings)
• Message to Invitees: Idea submission ends in 1/7/14 day (If set up in Campaign/Channel settings)
• Message to Contributor: Thank you for your new idea
• Message to Campaign Follower: New idea in followed campaign/channel
• Message to Keyword Follower: New idea for subscribed keyword
• Message to User Follower: New idea by followed User
• Message to Contributor: New comment on your idea
• Message to Idea Follower: New comment on followed idea
• Message to Participants: New post in private discussion
• Message to Contributor: Your idea has been selected for evaluation
• Message to Contributor: Idea has been split
• Message to Contributor: Idea has been merged
• Message to Contributor: Your idea has been selected for implementation
• Message to Contributor: Your idea has been reassigned to another campaign/channel

Who is behind OSIP

OSIP has been set up by the Discovery and Preparation Elements of the Basic Activities to host its internal and external Call for Ideas.

If other colleagues or programmes are interested to use OSIP for their Call for Ideas, please contact Leopold Summerer or Moritz Fontaine. Please note though, that we cannot provide any IT support for the setup of your Campaigns and Channels, even if we will of course try to help you where possible and share our lessons learned on performing Calls on OSIP.

OSIP Glossary

-B-

Bidder Code

The ESA Bidder Code clearly identifies all ESA partners that are eligible to do business with ESA. The ESA Bidder Code can be obtained after registration on esa-star.

-D-

Discovery Element

ESA’s Discovery Element is implementing Studies, System Studies, Early Technology Development Activities and Research Co-Sponsorship activities via OSIP. It is at the beginning of ESA’s innovation chain and preparing future technologies and missions for ESA. You can find more information here

-E-

Early Technology Development Activity

An activity type implemented through ESA’s Discovery Element The emphasis of “Novel Technology Development Activities” is on novel activities that address low TRL technology developments with potential interest to space applications. This includes activities, as done in the past in the ITI scheme, covering a.o. risk reduction, proof of concept and technology developments up to prototype level with potential customer interests. Early technology development activities have budgets between 50 and 175 k€.

ESA Bidder Code

The ESA Bidder Code clearly identifies all ESA partners that are eligible to do business with ESA. The ESA Bidder Code can be obtained after registration on esa-star.

ESA Memberstate

ESA has 22 Member States. The national bodies responsible for space in these countries sit on ESA’s governing Council: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Canada also sits on the Council and takes part in some projects under a Cooperation Agreement. Slovenia is an Associate Member. Seven other EU states have Cooperation Agreements with ESA: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia.
For up to date information, please refere the official ESA portal

-N-

Novelty

An Idea is novel if it is new compared to published concepts, techniques or processes. Novelty might also include applying an existing, described, published concept in a new context.

-O-

OSIP

ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform. OSIP should severe as a platform for ESA to get new innovative ideas from its partners and the public. Selected ideas from OSIP might get followed up by ESA and implemented via a contract with one of ESA’s industrial or academic partners.

-R-

Co-funded Research

ESA co-funded activities for research activities (e.g. PhD, postdoc, etc.) in cooperation with European universities. Experience has shown that very innovative ideas are often generated by universities. Activities under this heading, lasting between 6 months and 3 years with budgets from typically 20 to 90k€, including the co-funding of PhDs (former NPI initiative).

-S-

Study

A Study is a precursor activity for technology developments or to assess the feasibility of systems for space, with budgets of typically 20-100k€ per study. The emphasis of studies is on the novelty of the concept.

System Study

A system study is a special case of a study and looks into the complete design of a space mission including the design of the spacecraft main systems and the mission profile. It identifies the mission needs, science performance goals, safety and operations constraints as well as create initial technical requirements specification. A system Study is in the in the terms of the ECSS standards performed during Phase 0.

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TRL

Technical Readiness Level. Please see here for more information.

Idea Coaches

Authors of ideas submitted to the Open Discovery Element idea channel select the idea category  which they seem most suitable to their idea.

Each of the idea categories is associated to one or several idea coaches.

Role of Idea Coaches for submitted ideas

Idea coaches get a notification when a new idea is submitted corresponding to their idea category. The role of the idea coaches then is to

• identify ESA experts which might have either competence or interest in the topic of the submitted idea and add them to the ESA internal discussion tab below the idea. This gives these experts full access to the idea. Using the @name function, sends them also a notification. Idea coaches should encourage expert colleagues to provide authors directly with feedback on their idea via the comments tab or the private discussion tab - both situated below the idea.
• Provide authors with comments and feedback on their idea, e.g. information on related activities, studies, results, papers, potential issues, risks, interests. In case experts are providing comments only in the "ESA internal discussion" tab, idea coaches should share these with authors in an appropriate language via the comments tab (also visible to evaluators) or the private discussion tab - not visible to evaluators.

Role of Idea Coaches for selected ideas

Idea coaches have full access and a full overview of all ideas submitted related to their category. This includes their status (qualification, community discussion, under evaluation, selected).

Discovery Element Open Ideas Channel 

The open Discovery channel is soliciting ideas coming from outside ESA. As per the Channel description, the suitability to future ESA missions is not a criterion for Discovery element activities. As also briefly described in the paragraph above on the role of the idea coaches, it is important to

• avoid duplication and thus check that submitted ideas are not overlapping with ongoing activities in other programmes of ESA
• assess and eventually integrate useful results from activities into roadmaps and the planning of technology developments for e.g. TDE or GSTP activities. 

Discovery Element Open Ideas Channel - Lead Engineers

All lead engineers are ad personam members of the evaluation board for Discovery element channel ideas. They have access to all ideas.

In their role as members of the evaluation board, lead engineers are part of an invited to 

• make their evaluation of all ideas as part of the monthly evaluation sessions
• provide comments to all ideas and provide authors with directions and guidance for the eventual proposal phase
• suggest implementation paths,
• recommend TEB members for the proposal step in case the idea passes the idea phase.