Because it's vital for UK academia and industry to get involved in space programmes, the ESA Ministerial Preparatory Action (EMPA) Announcement of Opportunity (AO) was launched in May 2004.
The AO aimed to push the UK to get the most out of current and future European Space Agency/European Union (EU) programmes. It was timed to allow UK companies to position themselves to take advantage of European space programmes arising from the ESA Ministerial meeting at the end of 2005.
EMPA aimed to involve UK academia and industry in three key areas:
EMPA proved very attractive to industry with over 70 proposals submitted for funding, resulting in 18 successful bids. Click the following link to view a list of these companies: EMPA awards [Word document, opens in new window].
The winners of the EMPA funding had to show that they would address one or more of the following:
