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

Commissioned by 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 Parliament on Wednesday, June 2nd (see Parliamentary letter). The study's results have been summarised in an infographic.

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

1. The Netherlands is home to over 50 research groups in the field of space research, indicating broad embedding of space research in scientific research. Fourteen research groups with over 20 FTE are engaged in space research, totalling approximately 850 FTE across these 14 groups. In total, around 1000 FTE are involved in the evaluation within the 39 research groups. Eleven of these are considered specialised research groups/institutes focusing exclusively or significantly on space research, with 50% or more of researchers working in the field.
2. Space research is expanding in size and becoming increasingly integrated within the knowledge landscape. Apart from the 11 key players, there is a large group of over 40 groups/institutes contributing to the availability of space technology and applications, acting as suppliers to space research, or having a dependency on space research.
3. Dutch space research demonstrates a significant scientific impact on the international stage. 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 Microgravity (6^th place). Earth Observation has emerged as a second broad Dutch scientific strength in space research alongside Astronomy/Astrophysics. On average, Dutch space research (broad scope) has a high citation impact (~5th place globally) relative to its output (~15th place globally). The highest citation impact is observed in the major themes of Astronomy/Astrophysics and Earth Observation.
4. The 'heat maps' created based on the bibliometric analysis for each theme provide insight into whether research in that theme is concentrated among a few players or more widely dispersed. The degree of dispersion varies not only across the eight themes, but also within individual themes at the sub-theme level (or so-called topic clusters). These heat maps could serve as a useful tool to identify areas where research collaboration - if not already present - could be further strengthened.

This study is crucial for decision-making regarding the promotion of space research (national, European), potential prioritisation within space research, and as an initial step towards 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.