Running Activities implemented through Cooperative Agreements in the Discovery Programme

Cooperative Agreements

Legal Framework: Cooperative Agreements are governed by the ESA Contracting Regulations. The latest reference is available on https://esastar-publication.sso.esa.int/.

Purpose: These agreements establish partnerships without traditional procurement. They are designed to support industry or academia, rather than acquiring deliverables (e.g. hardware, software, technology, or services) for ESA’s direct use.

Milestone-Based Approach: Instead of verifying compliance with ESA requirements, partners commit to achieving agreed technical and financial milestones. In particular the ESA Technical Officer acts as facilitator to the activity in contrast to acting as project manager.

No Deliverables or Ownership Transfer: Main developments are not treated as deliverables. This means:

• No transfer of ownership or asset inventory.
• No formal acceptance or warranty obligations.
• Exceptions may apply in cases of termination or lack of exploitation.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR):

• For Discovery activities, IPR typically remains fully with the partner unless otherwise specified in the agreement.
• ESA may retain access rights to use Registered IPR for its core activities, but only when the IPR is related to space research, technology, or applications.

Reporting

A Progress report (template here) shall be uploaded by the agreement partner at least 15 days before each Payment Milestone to the project page on activities.esa.int (also informing in writing the ESA Technical Officer identified in the Cooperative Agreement)

The Final Reporting shall be submitted to ESA at least 15 days before the final payment Milestone and uploaded to the project page on activities.esa.int (also informing in writing the ESA Technical Officer identified in the Cooperative Agreement). All Final Reporting shall be free of any commercial/confidential information, which should be provided under separate cover if necessary. No copyright nor dissemination restrictions shall be indicated.

The reporting shall include:

• for Study and Early Technology Development activities:
  • the Final report (please use this template cover page)
  • the Executive Summary (please use this template cover page)
  • an Illustration of the activity
• for co-sponsored research:
  • the Research report (please use this template cover page)
• for all activities:
  • the registration status of IPR due under the Cooperative Agreement
• if the activity is co-funded, a cost certification, signed by a senior financial representative of the Partner or external accountant representing the Partner, stating as follow: 

I, (insert name) do hereby certify that an internal audit of the costs incurred under this Cooperative Agreement has been conducted to verify that the company’s cost accounting system and rules and the Agency’s requirements in Annex I to the General Clauses and Conditions for ESA Contracts (ESA/REG/002, rev. 4), available on https://esastar-publication.sso.esa.int/supportingDocumentation , under “Reference Documentation” – “Administrative Documents”, with respect to costs incurred under this Cooperative Agreement have been observed.
 I further certify that the company’s contribution to this Cooperative Agreement has been provided from (specify source) and has not been and will not be included in rates and overheads applied for this Cooperative Agreement or any other Cooperative Agreement or contract with the Agency.

Meetings

The only required meetings are:

• Kick-off meeting
• Progress Review for each Payment Milestone
• Final presentation meeting

Additional meetings might be agreed on together with ESA on an individual basis.

All meetings are to be held remote (via video conference) as travel should be kept to a minimum and no travel is foreseen for the ESA Technical Officer.

Web page

All running activities get a public entry on the https://activities.esa.int platform.

The cooperative agreement partner is requested to:

• Keep the information on their activities page updated
• Upload all publications to the activities page
• Use the activity platform as means to share reports, upload progress reports for milestone payments and
• Manage meetings for the project on activities.

The activities platform is still under development, in case of problems, please reach out to your contact point at ESA.

Co-sponsored research – visiting researcher

In the frame of a co-sponsored research activity, a visit of the key personnel (the researcher) to an ESA site may be considered. Such a visit is subject to a dedicated approval process included in the cooperative agreement (more specifically, signature of dedicated appendixes to the Cooperative agreement), but shall be finalised and formalised together with the ESA Technical Officer after the start of the activity.

Invoicing

After confirmation of the progress report or final reporting from ESA side, the invoice needs to be submitted to esa-p.

In case you encounter technical problems, please contact esait.service.desk@esa.int, tel. +39 06941 80700