To improve and develop the skills and expertise of SMEs, and to help them meet the challenges of space requirements, ESA’s SME Unit is organising two training courses in September. The deadline for registration is 6 August.

‘EEE Component Engineering Training for Engineers and Procurement Personnel’ and ‘Quality Assurance for Space Projects’ are the second set of four courses offered to industry by the SME Unit this year. The first two ‘Writing a good proposal for an ESA ITT’ and ‘Financing innovative projects’ took place in June and were well attended.

Since 1999 ESA has taken a number of measures in support of industrial competitiveness in general and of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in particular. The dynamism, flexibility and innovative capabilities of high-technology SMEs are of high value to Europe’s space industry and the Agency is actively encouraging this industrial group to become involved in its space programmes through its SME initiative.

Helping SMEs improve their technical skills and competence through training and technical assistance is a key part. To scale up the support to SMEs, ESA and the European Commission launched in 2005 a new project called Space Intelligence, Engineering & Quality Network (SineQuaNet), specially aimed at providing hands-on support and training to SMEs.

This year’s training programme is organised within the framework of the SineQuaNet project. As part of SineQuaNet a dedicated ESA SME website (http://www.esa.int/SME) has been created and an expert database is being set up which will provide better opportunities for SMEs to find the best expertise and facilities needed to improve their skills and make them more competitive.

Calendar

The two courses will take place in September:

• 3-4 September 2007: EEE Component Engineering Training for Engineers and Procurement Personnel (EEE-CET)
• 5-7 September 2007: Quality Assurance For Space Projects (QA)

The training courses will take place at ESTEC, the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and are open to all companies belonging to one of the ESA Member or Co-operating States with priority given to SMEs.

The deadline for registration for these two courses is 6 August 2007.

For more information visit the 'ESA Training Programme for Industry 2007' web site.