Innovations from Oxfordshire and Bristol receive development funding from the UK Space Agency
Nine new ideas for climate services have received development funding from the UK Space Agency.
Supported by Space4Climate, the UK Space Agency funded the £85,000 call at the end of 2022. It aims to foster climate services innovation by developing UK business-viable ideas that use space data to address the impacts of climate change.
The list of nine from across the country include Stellarsat from Bristol, an AI-based Geospatial Tool for Assessing and Mitigating Climate Risks on Critical National Infrastructure (‘AiGeo-CNI’), Deimos Space UK and Agtelligence LTD - both based at Harwell in Oxfordshire.
Deimos Space UK's project is ‘CSI WAMA’ – Climate Service Impact on WAter MAnagement, while Agtelligence LTD's ‘FarmScore’ – is an Earth Observation for land management and biodiversity.
Beth Greenaway, Head of Earth Observation and Climate at UK Space Agency and Chair of Space4Climate, praised the quality and innovative approach of all the applications. She said: “I am delighted to see this set of projects get started with UK Space Agency funding to enable the development of business models for commercial climate services based on space data.
“The number and quality of applications in this first climate services call shows the appetite and ability of UK companies to be innovative and at the forefront of using space to allow others to adapt or mitigate for climate change. We look forward to the Space4Climate community growing as these business opportunities progress.”
Space4Climate is a not-for-profit membership organisation for the UK Earth Observation for climate community. Climate satellites gather data by observing and measuring Earth from space. Climate services provide / use climate data in a format to help end-users, decision-makers and policy-makers to take climate-smart decisions.
Recipients of the funding will develop a business viability presentation, setting out the vision for their climate service, how it could work, the core users and the route to market.
Krupa Nanda Kumar, Climate Services Development Manager at Space4Climate, said: “The UK is at the forefront of innovative applications of climate data from space for climate services. The awardees are a diverse range of projects across climate-related sectors and spread around the country. We are keen to support them and we look forward to the outcomes of their projects.”
