Environmental Space Living Lab
Enabling Agritech adoption across the UK.
Green Technology Innovation Vouchers Available
Apply today for the Green Technology Innovation Vouchers and access up to £10,000 for ESLL facilities and expertise to fuel your journey from concept to market!
The Environmental Space Living Lab: bridging the innovation gap
It can be hard for farmers, landowners, and land managers to keep track of the latest technological innovations, resources, and companies offering services to address the range of agricultural and environmental challenges they face. Whilst those looking to develop new solutions and services to address these challenges often find it difficult to connect with end users to understand requirements, and access real-world test environments to ensure their innovation are fit for purpose and scalable in ever-changing markets.
The Environmental Space Living Lab (ESLL) is an innovation ecosystem that bridges the gap between end-users and service providers by providing access to facilities and expertise created to support the design, testing, and validation of new agricultural and environmental technology services.
The ESLL provides access to 5G connectivity, robotics, sensors on the ground and Earth Observation data from space. We offer a user-centred approach support to integrate, accelerate, and test new ideas in real-world test environments around the UK. Designed to enable proof of concepts and demonstrations to the right stakeholders to collect valuable data and insights for co-creation and commercialisation of new technologies.
Key Challenge Areas:
The Environmental Space Living Lab focuses on sustainable agricultural and land management practices, and enables effective compliance with environmental regulations through three key challenge areas underpinned by connectivity, autonomy, and geospatial data:
SOIL
Functioning soils are essential to national food security, clean water provision, and carbon sequestration. Space technologies enable automated soil monitoring through Earth Observation, remote sensing, and satellite-enabled IoT.
WATER
Satellite data and geospatial approaches are essential to manage water catchments that span huge geographies across complex topographies. When catchments are poorly managed the environment is less able to clean water, refill aquifers, and reduce flood impacts.
BIODIVERSITY
Agriculture alone poses a threat to 86% of species at risk of extinction. Monitoring biodiversity must be faster and at scale. Satellite technology can track species movements and migrations, ensure environmental corridors, and predict where species will be able to live under future conditions.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL SPACE LIVING LABS OFFER
The Environmental Space Living Lab unites space, market and technology experts with policy makers, academia and end users. This collaborative space enables the exploration and analysis of challenges. It also provides the opportunity for co-designing and testing of scalable innovative solutions, thereby accelerating their commercialisation. By doing so, it drives business growth while generating long-term social and environmental impacts.
OPPORTUNITY EXPLORATION WORKSHOPS
Explore how space-technologies and connectivity (5G) can benefit your business and market. Deep dive into your business plan to highlight opportunities, costs and risks of your innovation and start to develop potential solutions. This may include Challenge Exploration workshops.
SOLUTION ACCELERATION AND TESTING
Work collaboratively with users and stakeholders to define requirements, explore how cutting-edge technologies can be incorporated into new services, and then prototype and test your solution to validate it.
COMMERCIALISATION SUPPORT
Develop a commercial strategy that will enable you to deploy your solution and scale. Amongst other areas this may include market analysis, go-to-market strategy, stakeholder mapping, Intellectual property reviews, access to funding, definition of value proposition and support around being investment ready.
COMMUNITY AND NETWORKING
Access to the Environmental Space Living Labs community with access to the UK space sector via the Space Capabilities Catalogue and Space Enterprise Community. Plus, the opportunity to engage with key UK agricultural and environmental stakeholders via our links to government, industry, and academia. Offering the ability to showcase and demonstrate your solution amongst relevant stakeholders, or find out about the latest innovations that could address your challenges.
EDUCATION
Training and courses: a curriculum developed with our consortium partners to enable knowledge transfer on new Agritech and space technologies and their applications for the agricultural sector to support your business.
SPACE FOR SUSTAINABILTY
The agri-food sector is one of the main contributors of climate change, contributing to 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, a staggering 70% of global freshwater withdrawals are dedicated for agricultural activities, highlighting the immense strain placed on water resources by the sector. Simultaneously, agriculture itself faces significant challenges as a result of climate change. Shifts in temperature patterns, altered rainfall regimes, and increased frequency of extreme weather events all pose threats to crop yields, livestock health, and overall food production stability.
Space plays a key role in monitoring the environment and provide insights to farmers and agri-food supply chain stakeholders for decision making. The integration of space-based data and insights into agricultural practices offers immense potential for mitigating climate change impacts, enhancing sustainability, and optimising resource usage.
If you would like to gain a greater understanding of what is possible with Earth Observation, please reach out via the contact us section below.
SPACE: INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY, PROFITABLILITY AND SUSTAINABILTY.
The space sector is currently experiencing significant changes in technological innovation, business models and service providers with new commercial players entering this sector. These developments make space technology more accessible and widely available.
Given that significant investment has already gone into space assets, exploiting them comes at a lower overall cost than the deployment of ground infrastructure in most cases. For instance, there has been 71% increase in number of communication satellites since 2020, making satellite communications an appealing option for service deployment in a remote location with limited terrestrial connectivity.
Moreover, the Earth Observation sector has undergone transformative changes, resulting in a wealth of accessible data, higher spatial resolutions, automated analytics and diverse business models.
The Satellite Applications Catapult is at the forefront of this revolution, pushing the boundaries of technology and its applications. Through collaboration between the agri-food industry and space technology pioneers, we can unlock the full potential of space-based solutions, promoting a more sustainable and resilient future for the sector.
ESLL PARTNERS:
Co-funded by the Heart of the Southwest Local Enterprise Partnership and Innovate UK. The Environmental Space Living Lab operates across our consortium partners. Our partners include Petroc College in North Devon, Bicton College in East Devon and Bridgwater and Taunton College in Somerset. They also include the North Devon Biosphere, Plymouth and Exeter Universities and Devon and Dorset County Councils. The Lab leverages resources from the Satellite Applications Catapult and our partners including Earth Observation data, 5G pop-up masts and real-world test sites to enable delivery of support for your business.
No matter the stage of your business, the Environmental Space Living Lab is here to assist you. Whether you have a piece of technology and seek suitable applications, require assistance in securing funding to develop a prototype, or need access to potential users for testing and piloting your technology or service, the Environmental Space Living Lab can provide the support you need.
PROCESS
- Start your enquiry by filling out the “Start your enquiry” form below.
- An appropriate member of our Business Innovation Team will reach out to arrange an initial call on Teams to discuss the areas of support required.
- If appropriate, a diagnostic call will be arranged including internal and external specialist required. During that call, we will deep dive into the business to support the development of a statement of work.
- The statement of work will be used to create a quote for the support. Once agreed, and subject to standard checks, support can commence.
Start Your Enquiry
Find out more and book an initial call with our ESLL business innovation team.
