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FOREWORD
Space technologies have started permeating many aspects of life in our modern societies, bringing about substantial improvements in communications, transport, media delivery, and environment. The ability to forecast better the weather has many applications in industry, leisure activities, and in the management of natural disasters. With the increasing attention paid to the developments in space activities, the need has grown for statistics and analysis in this area to better support and inform policy making.
In 2002, in collaboration with the space community, the OECD International Futures Programme (IFP) launched a project to explore how space technologies could potentially contribute in finding solutions to some major enduring societal problems. The IFP is a forward-looking multidisciplinary group with the mission to alert the Secretary-General and the Organisation to emerging issues by pinpointing major developments and analysing long-term concerns with a view to helping governments map their strategy. Two publications came out of this first extensive and intensive OECD look at the space sector. The first one Space 2030: The Future of Space Applications (2004) explored promising space applications for the XXIst century. The second one, Space 2030: Tackling social challenges (2005) assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the regulatory frameworks that govern space and formulated a policy framework that OECD governments might use in drafting policies to ensure the full potential that space offers is realised.
Following the project, there was strong encouragement for OECD to continue to be involved. A number of institutions, especially space agencies, asked the IFP to continue exploring the economic dimensions of space infrastructure. In that context, an innovative platform for international dialogue on the social and economic aspects of space activities was launched in February 2006: the OECD Global Forum on Space Economics. This Forum is supported by voluntary contributions from a number of governments and space agencies (ASI, BNSC, CNES, CSA, ESA, NOAA, Norwegian Space Centre, USGS). It aims to provide evidence-based analysis to assist agencies and governments in shaping policy.
The Space Economy at a Glance is an innovative compilation of statistics on the space sector and its contributions to economic activity. In addition, it offers critical insights into some of the main problems involved in deriving internationally comparable data for the industry and its downstream activities, notably the lack of detailed data, and conceptual and definitional problems.
The impetus for this publication was provided by a 2003 paper prepared by Dirk Pilat and Sandrine Kergroach-Connan, then at the OECD Economic Analysis and Statistics (EAS) Division of the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI). The first version served as an annex to the OECD publication Space 2030: Exploring the Future of Space Applications. The paper has been updated and enriched with new data, graphs, text and overall presentation to become a part of the OECD “at a glance” publications collection. The resulting publication was prepared by Claire Jolly, policy analyst, and Gohar Razi, statistician in the Secretary-General Advisory Unit (SGEAU), and reviewed by Barrie Stevens, SGEAU Deputy Director and Pierre Alain Schieb, Head of the Futures Project, all working for the OECD Forum on Space Economics. This work could not have been possible without the help of the staff in the Advisory Unit, as well as support from the Statistics Directorate, and Colin Webb, Administrator, in the Science, Technology and Industry (STI) Directorate.
This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD.
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