About this job

The Serco group is among the leading Space Industry and Services Companies. We have over 40 years’ experience in supporting the space sector. Since the creation of the European Space Agency (ESA), our employees have been providing everyday their technical, scientific and management skills to support the full range of European cornerstone space missions.

Responsibilities

• Manage and promote the use of space technologies, space systems and their applications through fostering entrepreneurship and applied research.
• Manage a network of ESA BICs throughout all ESA’s participating states, currently supporting more than 200 new start-ups per year.
• Manage a network of ESA Technology Brokers (hereafter ‘Brokers’) throughout all ESA’s participating states.
• Manage a network of ESA Phi-Labs (hereafter ‘ΦLabs’) throughout all ESA’s participating states.
• Manage and maintain commercial partnerships with corporates, institutes and universities in support of the above-mentioned networks.
• Retrieve, analyse and disseminate economic impact data.

Implementation and country management of ESA BICs, Brokers and ΦLab activities:

• Facilitate day-to-day contact between ESA and ESA BICs, Brokers and ΦLabs.
• Prepare ESA BIC, Broker and ΦLab procurement proposals.
• Monitor the progress of ESA BIC start-ups, Broker projects and ΦLab projects and prepare reports to the responsible ESA Technical Officer.
• Provide support for local activities (promotion, training, …) taking place in the ESA BICs, Brokers and ΦLabs in their respective member states.

Conduct expert meetings, particularly selection campaign meetings with local ESA BIC, Brokers, and/or ΦLab entities and partners; The support can range from providing an independent chairing role to supporting the assessment of projects; i.e. in more precise terms:

• Support the attraction of project proposals.
• Support ESA BICs, Brokers and/or ΦLabs in the identification and characterization of new products and services exploiting space technologies (e.g. materials, sensors, robotics, software, etc) and satellite systems (e.g. Satcom, Earth Observation and Satellite Navigation) and their integration in both space and non-space domains.
• Assess highly innovative projects, particularly in terms of business plan assessment and assessment of the technical and operational requirements applicable to space derived technologies and applications.
• Conduct chair function on behalf of the Agency to ensure an orderly assessment of the proposals by the local ESA BIC / Broker / partners.
• Support the individual fields of the Office’s responsibility in terms of the common approach, administration and overall quality management of the ESA BICs, Brokers and ΦLabs.
• Support the design of a digital approach for data collection and analyses related to all Office activities and its impact, e.g., on economy and SDGs as well as performance.

Profile

• A master’s in relevant discipline.
• A minimum of 4 years of experience in management of technology and innovation.
• A minimum of 4 years of expertise in stakeholders’ management
• Sound knowledge of the overall upstream space market, and specific experience inspecifying, developing, evaluating and promoting applications.
• Sound knowledge of downstream products and services with relevant space technologies.
• Ability to interface at appropriate levels with relevant actors within and outside of the Office. An eye for political sensitivity is an important factor.
• Ability to rapidly understand and adapt to ESA specific context and environment including ESA corporate IT applications (ESA Star, ESA Match, DealRoom, OSIP, etc). Experience with ESA relevant applications is deemed to be very valuable.
• Ability to work with software reporting tools particularly Microsoft Sharepoint, as well as some familiarity to add features in these reporting tools.
• Awareness of early-stage investment climate in Europe and globally. Legal expertise is a plus.
• Excellent analytical skills.
• High standard of document drafting.
• Comfortable with working in a diverse and multinational team environment.
• Excellent interpersonal skills are needed, together with a high degree organizational and communication abilities
• Proficient in the English language, both written and spoken.
• Knowledge of another EU member state language is an asset.
• Candidates must be eligible to work in the EU.