The objective of this project is to inject extra impetus into the creation of new businesses, whilst generating a chain reaction in a number of industrial sectors by developing new products, services and business models that utilise space-based systems, data and infrastructure. 

This is the reasoning behind setting up three new centres in Italy, the most recent members of the Italian national network of European Space Agency Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs). 

The project is the outcome of synergy between the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and I3P, the university incubator at Politecnico di Torino, and is part of the architecture envisioned by ASI to set up Italy as a space entrepreneurship innovation hub. 

This expansion to the Italian network means that ESA BIC Turin and ESA BIC Lazio are now joined by three other centres: ESA BIC Milan, ESA BIC Padua and ESA BIC Brindisi. 

The three new BICs will be managed by PoliHub (for ESA BIC Milan) jointly with Fondazione Politecnico di Milano, Officina Stellare (for ESA BIC Padua) and DTA – Distretto Tecnologico Aerospaziale (for ESA BIC Brindisi). I3P will continue to run ESA BIC Turin, which opened in 2021, while coordinating the administrative side of work together with ESA and ASI. 

ESA BIC Milan will work closely with Politecnico di Milano’s Department of Aerospace Science and Technology (DAER), which will provide scientific and technologic support to the startups, and the BIC is backed financially by the Regional Council of Lombardy, Regione Lombardia.