Agile Space Living Lab – The Emergence of a New High-Tech Innovation Paradigm

Abstract

The global space industry has recently seen a structural transformation through the emergence of "New Space", i.e. a significant expansion of the development of smaller, cheaper and more modular space-related products in services. One example of this expansion is the emergence of a world-leading cluster of New Space industry in Scotland (UK). Critically, this development is being pitched as a new approach to innovation ecosystem, which the players refer to as "Agile Space", based on a consolidation of cross-sector competences within a loose value chain integration. However, I argue in particular, that the emergence of the Scottish New Space Sector is crucially linked to the Living Laboratories (Living Lab) conceptualisation of the innovation practices and processes within the Agile Space approach. Hence, this paper maps the key features of the emergence and development of the New Space Industry in Scotland and analyses the key feature of the Agile Space Living Lab paradigm, before proposing a critical further research agenda suggesting several much-needed strands of enquiry.

New Space and Innovation Policy: Scotland's Emerging “Space Glen”

“…54 In particular, SMEs are key for the (smaller end) of the Small Satellites market and emerging data applications, where the transition to New Space is being most clearly demonstrated. With the cheaper core technologies and easier access to space data, companies are being set up on the basis of a new generation of products and services (e.g., nanosatellites and data analytics platforms), which are being developed more closely with the end users 55 (e.g., local government, multinational corporation, and community groups), and are based on ''productization'' of R&D solutions into mass production. 56 In essence, this approach, new to the Space Industry, is transforming the SMEs involved into end product manufacturers, rather than business-to-business subcontractors and suppliers.…”

The Ten Million Euro Question: How Do Innovation Intermediaries Support Smart Specialization?

“…Some of the issues with scope and scale of R&D funding are currently being addressed through Challenge Funding and place-based City Deals available through the UK's industrial strategy (HM Government, 2017). However, being first to bring solutions to the market and establishing the Agile Space brand (Vidmar, 2019a(Vidmar, , 2019c is ensuring a bigger presence on the global market for Scottish than Slovenian products and services.…”

New Space and Agile Innovation: Understanding transition to open innovation by examining innovation networks and moments

“…into "New Space" [1]. Overall, this is billed as a transitioning away from states and multinational corporations driven markets towards more democratised and de-centralised economic activity based on academic research and small-to-medium-size enterprises (SME) [1][2][3]. The efficiencies and added value enabling such a shift is built upon significant changes of, on one hand, decrease in cost of developing space technology, and on the other hand, increase in openness and accessibility of space data.…”

“…Specifically, these changes are enabled by cheaper core technologies (electronics, additive manufacturing / 3D printing), increasing quantity of, and access to, open source data (from public programmes, such as ESA/EU's Copernicus) and new system/operation solutions (e.g. cloudbased platforms for operation and data management, standard components and "flat pack" hardware) [1,2].…”

“…Despite these significant changes and the economic and political interest these development have generated, their features and implications are poorly understood, as previously outlined by Vidmar [2,8]. There is particularly the need to understand the "organisational structuring and interactions with external partners in the innovation process, and specifically analyse its (inter)dependence on external knowledge acquisition" and "the emergence, development and the current structure of [innovation] links and networks" [2].…”