The European Space Agency have an exciting funding opportunity coming up and got in touch with us to ask that we share it with you, our WILDLABS community members. I think it might be particularly relevant to members of this group.

They are looking for Kick-Start ideas to leverage space technology for wildlife protection. These 'Kick Start Activities' fall under the ESA's new funding scheme which sees them fund activities at 75%, with ESA providing up to €60,000 per contract - and they are looking for multiple activities to support. This funding opportunity is designed to be particularly interesting for SMEs and start-ups looking for opportunities to develop their ideas for new business applications.  

Under the Wildlife Protection theme, three main topics of relevance have been identified: 

• Wildlife monitoring, tracking  and inventory
• Habitat monitoring and assessment
• Fighting against poaching and illegal wildlife products trading

Exploitation of space-based data and technology is key for the proposed Kick-start Activity theme:

• High-resolution satellite Earth Observation images can be used to periodically monitor the environmental changes affecting wildlife habitat as well as identify and monitor (some) wildlife movement patterns and species numbers.
• Satellite Navigation is essential to track & trace animals, control and command remotely piloted aircraft systems, geo-localise in-situ measurements from various sensors, etc.
• Satellite Communications may be used for in-the-field communications in remote areas. In addition the ARGOS satellite system combined with ARGOS transmitters allows precise and continuous tracking of animals.

The call will open on 31 July, 2017.

In anticipation of the call opening, ESA is holding two webinars so interested parties can find out more about the opportunity. The webinars for this topic are scheduled for 

• 13 July 2017, 11:00 - 12:00 CEST 
• 25 July 12:00 - 13:00 CEST

Register for the webinar here 

If you have specific questions, don't hesitate to pop them below as other people might be wondering the same thing. We'll ensure that ESA gets back to you with an answer to any query about the funding call.