site.btaInnovation Ministry, European Space Agency Present Opportunities for Applying for Projects

Experts from the Innovation and Growth Ministry and from the European Space Agency (ESA) presented opportunities for applying for projects to the ESA at an event in Plovdiv on Tuesday.

"For 2023, our country paid EUR 2 million in membership fees, and for last year - EUR 2.5 million. This amount is also the budget of the programmes through which Bulgarian projects will be financed," Deputy Minister of Innovation and Growth Georgi Angelov said at the opening of the information event. He emphasized that Bulgaria's goal is to increase its level of membership from a cooperating country to an associated and full member.

In 2024, Bulgaria applied for funding for 12 projects, two of which were approved, he noted, adding that among the topics on which projects will be funded in 2025 are those related to air quality, space food, monitoring of agricultural and forest areas, monitoring systems for hydropower facilities such as dams and energy systems. The typical successful example of cooperation is between a company and a university, Angelov pointed out.

So far, the focus of Bulgarian projects has been on Earth observation, including products and services that use various data from space to solve problems on Earth, said Jennifer Ngo-Ahn from ESA. She presented the European Cooperating Countries Programme. She noted that the procedures for applying to ESA will be opened after the summer, and information meetings will be held until then. She recommended the development of projects relating to the topic of radiation.

The Plovdiv Agricultural University is working on a project funded with EUR 50,000 by ESA, said Dr Zhulieta Arnaudova. The project includes the development of a new academic discipline for master's programmes, which will be related to remote sensing of crops, geographic information systems and guidelines for the use and application of Earth observations for agriculture. "Our goal is to teach students to use the Copernicus algorithms and to improve their knowledge of digitization in agriculture," Arnaudova said. The 18-month course is expected to be introduced in the 2025/26 academic year.