Study to examine the socio-economic impact of Copernicus in the EU : report on the socio-economic impact of the Copernicus programme

This report presents an assessment of the overall economic impact derived from public spending on the Copernicus programme. The report compiles the results from two other reports: - Strategy&, 2015. Study to examine the GDP impact of space activities in the EU. Final Report Prepared by Strategy& for the European Commission. September, 2015. This study focused on the GDP impact of EC & ESA spending on the Copernicus Space component over the period 2008 - 2013. - PwC - Strategy&, 2016. Study to examine the socio-economic impact of Copernicus in the EU. Final Report Prepared by PwC - Strategy& for the European Commission. July, 2016. This study focused on the socio-economic impacts of freely available and open Copernicus data & products in Europe. The project analysed the use of Copernicus data along eight sector value chains: agriculture, ocean monitoring, insurance, O&G, renewable energies, urban monitoring, air quality monitoring and forestry. The economic assessment was performed using two different approaches. The economic benefits derived from public investment in the Space & Services components of the Copernicus programme were assessed using a GDP impact methodology. The GDP impact - or transactional economic impact - is the first impact to fully materialize after the initial investment. GDP impact mostly includes the impact of space manufacturing activities on the local or regional industrial sectors. However, this assessment does not include the actual use of infrastructure, i.e. the usage of Copernicus data & products available for free. The complexity of the economic linkages and imapcts arising from the use of Copernicus data & products justifies the use of a micro-diffusion model to understand at the level of the firm how the data & products are used and how they are creating specific knowledge that leads to sales increases or cost reductions. Wider methodologies such as the GDP impact assessment methodology are not able to capture the complexity of this type of phenomenon and assess accurately such economic impact.