Starry starry night... inventory Dutch Space Research to House of Representatives

On behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, Dialogic has mapped out space research ("research in or from space") in the Netherlands. This research was presented to the Dutch House of Representatives on Wednesday 2 June (see Parliamentary letter). The findings of the study have been summarised in an infographic.

For the inventory, information on 56 research groups that are active to varying degrees in space research has been collected. An extensive bibliometric analysis and a series of interviews were also conducted. Some of the key findings include:

1. The Netherlands has over 50 research groups in the field of space research, indicating that space research is widely embedded in scientific research. There are fourteen research groups with more than 20 FTE (full-time equivalents) dedicated to space research. These 14 groups together consist of approximately 850 FTE. In total, around 1000 FTE are involved in the 39 research groups contributing to the evaluation. Eleven of these groups are considered as specialised research groups/institutes focusing exclusively or significantly on space research, with 50% or more of researchers working as space researchers.
2. Space research is growing in size and becoming more entrenched within the knowledge landscape. Besides the 11 key players, there is a large group of around 40 groups/institutes contributing to the availability of space technology and applications or serving as suppliers to space research, or having a dependency on space research.
3. Dutch space research demonstrates a significant scientific impact internationally. Compared to the output of the top 20 countries in recent years (2014-2019), the Netherlands has published a considerable amount in Astronomy/Astrophysics (1^st place), Earth Observation (3^rd place) and Microweight (6^th place). Earth Observation has evolved into a second, broad Dutch scientific strength in space research alongside Astronomy/Astrophysics. On average, Dutch space research (broad definition) enjoys a high citation impact (approximately 5th place worldwide) compared to its output (around 15th place worldwide). Citations are highest in the major themes of Astronomy/Astrophysics and Earth Observation.
4. The 'heat maps' prepared based on the bibliometric analysis for each theme provide insight into the concentration or spread of research within that theme across several players or diversified. The level of diversification varies not only across the eight themes but also within individual themes at the sub-theme level (or so-called topic clusters). The heat maps could serve as a useful tool to assess where research collaboration - if not already existing - could be further strengthened.

This study is crucial for decision-making on stimulating space research (both nationally and European-wide), potential prioritisation within space research, and as an initial step in preparation for the ministerial conference of the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2022.

Would you like to learn more about this research? Please contact Pim den Hertog.