ESA Benefit Case Studies – 100+ success stories of space for Europe’s industry, economy and society • Aug 2025
With funding equivalent to €15 per European citizen
annually (compared to nearly €220 per citizen in the United States), ESA plays
a key role in supporting European space capabilities.
As shown in ESACM22 Economic Impact Report,
the €16.9 billion of subscriptions at ESA Ministerial Council in 2022 are
leading to industrial contracts and revenues to the European space industry,
based on which €22 billion of GDP (in value added terms) and €6 billion of tax
revenues are projected to be generated. These investments also support over
260,000 job-years (equivalent to nearly 33,000 jobs per year) primarily in
scientific research and development, and manufacturing industries which outline
significantly higher productivity than the average of the European economy.
Beyond the effects of industrial contracts, the space
assets developed through ESA programmes deliver remarkable value to Europe’s
industry, economy and society. ESA programmes drive growth, support high
value-added jobs, foster innovation and critical skills, and secure Europe’s
strategic autonomy while actively working to safeguard its global
competitiveness in an ever more complex economic and geopolitical context.
ESA's Space Economy Portal library gathers 100+ national success
stories, highlighting achievements and benefits from ESA activities across all ESA
Member States, notably from:
1.
Technology Development programmes such as
Discovery, TDE, GSTP;
2.
FutureEO, ESA’s Technology Development programme
for Earth Observation;
3.
CTP, ESA’s Technology Development programmes for
Space Science;
4.
ESA ARTES programme, for Advanced Research in
Telecommunications Systems;
5.
ESA Business Applications and Space Solutions
programme, BASS;
6.
Europe’s flagship Earth Observation programme,
Copernicus;
7.
ESA’s Technology Transfer activities.
The documents are accessible through the Space Economy Portal library,
please log in or register (free and open to all) to access the full list of
references. Benefit Case Studies can be filtered by country, by year of
publication, and by type of space activity.
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