Space-Comm Expo: Business Minister's speech

Welcome to Glasgow!

It is great to see such an amazing turnout at this, the first ever Space-comm Expo to take place in Scotland!

Like many of you, I’ve attended this event in Farnborough but it’s great to be here in Glasgow – Scotland’s space city!

Glasgow underwent a remarkable transformation during the industrial revolution but played a key role in transforming the world as well.

It wasn’t space ships back then, but this city famously became a shipbuilding hub. And the city’s engineering prowess also made it a leader in locomotive manufacturing.

I recall reading in our foremost historian Professor Sir Tom Devine’s book “To the Ends of the Earth” how, back in the day, the wheat from Canada and the US prairies was likely to have been transported to eastern ports in the US on Glasgow-built locomotives.

To be sent across the Atlantic on Clyde built ships.

And of course, the sacks holding the grain were made in Dundee!       

Today, this great city has reinvented itself as a hub of small satellite manufacturing – the biggest outside of California.

Now helping to transform our world through communications and space exploration.

From being a leading light in the science and industrial revolutions in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, 21^st century Glasgow and Scotland are forging a leading role in Europe’s space economy.

That innovative spirit means Scotland is ready to help humanity meet the challenges of the 21^st century.

And space is a vital priority.

Today, space is no longer limited to scientific interest.

Shaping our society and how we live and work, and improving understanding of our world. 

Space also plays an important role in defence and security which, given today’s geopolitics, is now attracting billions of dollars in additional investment.

Satellites built in Scotland predict the weather, support international trade, connect businesses and monitor the climate.

And increasing commercial use, means massive commercial opportunities for us all.  

And in each of these sectors, it has been innovation that has been the magic ingredient delivering solutions.

Innovation from a downstream industry that processes data into a meaningful and useful form.

And Innovation - from an industry constructing and delivering into orbit the payloads that enable that to happen.

Scotland is no stranger to Innovation given our reputation for helping to invent the modern world from penicillin to the telephone and television. 

And now we are continuing that tradition.

Scotland’s year old Innovation Strategy builds on that legacy.

Our ambition is to be one of the most innovative small nations by the end of the decade.

And space has a huge part to play in enabling that ambition. 

There are four broad themes that are strengths in the Scottish economy – the Energy Transition, Data, Digital and Advanced Manufacturing. 

These all help underpin our ambitions for space. 

I am truly excited by the prospect of cross pollination across all these high growth sectors – sectors that are export orientated, attract inward investment.

The Scottish Government are alive to growing technological opportunities and have identified Photonics, Quantum, Semiconductors technology as critical technologies that can support future industries. 

Not only is our Critical Technologies supercluster integral to our Space sector, it is itself a significant asset for Scotland. 

It has more than 140 companies generating £3.6 billion turnover, and employing 10,300 people. 

These clusters of high growth sectors are critical to delivering growth in Scotland. 

They are dependent on space for their next level of success and the space industry in turn benefits from the technological innovations those sectors deliver. 

And this, in turn, delivers the economic growth set out in our National Strategy of Economy Transformation. 

And from the UK Space Agency’s recently published Size and Health Report, we have a good foundation to build on.

That report contained some phenomenal illustrations of Scotland’s space industry success.

The number of companies now based in Scotland has increased by 25% and the sectors total income has increased by 65%, over one year.

And remember “mighty oaks from small acorns grow”:

Craig Clark’s establishment of Scotland’s first commercial satellite operation here in Glasgow and later encouraging Spire Global to establish a presence here, was the spark that ignited the first decade and a half of progress.

And it is thanks to the vision and hard work of people like Craig and so many others - entrepreneurs, researchers and academics - that we are where we are today.

In a few short years, Scotland’s sector has gone from that one person in his office, to a multi-million pound industry employing over 6000 people in over 200 companies and organisations.

Glasgow is now host to home-grown and international companies who are all innovating and breaking new ground. 

Satellites have gone from the size of a van to that of a shoebox.

The cost has dropped from tens of millions to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

And the time to design, build and deploy has reduced to months.  

That, in turn, is accelerating the growth of satellite orbital launches. 

And the applications of small satellite data are so vast, from climate and conservation, agriculture and forestry, to our finance sector. 

All informed by data gathering and analysis.

And Edinburgh is the data driven capital of Europe, hosting the largest centre for informatics in the whole of Europe. 

The Scottish Government sees huge potential in this.

Working jointly with the wider sector, we co-developed Scotland’s first Space Strategy in 2021 with the shared ambition, to reach £4 billion share of the global space market and creating 20,000 jobs over the next ten years. 

Our enterprise agencies, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise work tirelessly to support companies maximise their potential.

And in fact just yesterday, South of Scotland Enterprise released its own regional Space Strategy.

The Scottish Government also set up an investment vehicle – The Scottish National Investment Bank – which seeks to make targeted investments in support its three missions of Net Zero, Place and Innovation.  

And it was the alignment with that Innovation mission that secured the Bank’s £28.3m investment into Orbex, as part of the development of their commercial launch vehicle. 

We also have our £42 million Techscaler programme, operated by Codebase, supporting this sector, particularly software design for the space technology ecosystem and companies like Krucial have enjoyed the benefits.

And we’re working with our world leading universities and others to deploy our AI skills.

AI is improving spacecraft autonomy and aiding navigation and predicting risks such as solar storms and space debris.

The University of Strathclyde’s Aerospace Centre for Excellence is leading a pioneering international collaboration to explore how AI can be harnessed to improve space operations, safety and sustainability. 

So the future of space is not about space alone. It’s about many sectors, skillsets and policies and for the private and public sectors.

And one role I know we can do more with is “Government as a Customer” which is being discussed at this event.

Space and the data we get from above are a means to help generate solutions for public sector problems.

And they also serve as a valuable signal to the investor community looking for that reassurance when making investment decisions.

We are utilising existing programmes like our CivTech to think about challenges we can throw out to industry to improve public service delivery through innovation.

Through CivTech, AAC Clydespace are working with Forestry Scotland, utilising space data to monitor threats to our biodiversity.

To encourage businesses to bid into public procurement processes, we already have the Supplier Development Programme – who deliver “Meet the Buyer” events across Scotland – present in the hall today and speaking at a panel a little later this morning.  

We need the public sector on side. And we need our academic excellence as well.

Scotland helped lead the world into the first industrial revolution as both an industrial and intellectual centre, and those core strengths in science and technology and innovation continue through our universities today, which are among the very best in the world. 

The UK’s Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh played a vital role in the development of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Its Director, Professor Gillian Wright, led the build of the Mid Infrared Instrument, which will help to provide new insight into distant objects and the origins of the universe. 

Another example of Scotland’s expertise is the LIGO project: A team at the University of Glasgow developed and built key components for LIGO – the first in the world to detect gravitational waves, confirming one of Einstein’s theories and giving us a new insight into space-time, supernovas and black holes. 

So, Scotland's space industry exemplifies how it is collaboration, strategic partnering and creative solutions that drive economic growth.  

Within Scotland we see that collaboration across our eco-system.

We see it embedded across the government, across academia through the Scottish Space Academic Forum, and finally through Space Scotland that, in the few short years, has firmly become the “broader voice” of the space community in our country.

That collaboration needs to exist at the wider level too.

The interaction at the UK level – working with the new UK Government; working with ESA and the UK Space Agency to secure better outcomes for Space organisations in Scotland.

Our trade and inward investment representatives in Scottish Development International spend their days scouring the markets looking for opportunities.

And then, of course, its about recognising there’s competition out there. But we need to collaborate and compete.

And we just have to look up to see the rewards.

When we look up at the night sky, we see the sun reflecting off the myriad of satellites in Low Earth Orbit. And, increasingly, I think about how close we are to Scotland making its own contribution to that picture.

In Scotland, launch is the last piece in the value chain.

Not only is it our ambition to support industry, develop our manufacturing capability and expand our downstream presence, we also want to position Scotland as a vital destination for launch activity.  

Our geography has those natural attributes for entering those orbits best suited for Earth Observation.  

We host five out of the seven UK spaceports projects all in various stages of progress. 

We host a number of rocket manufacturers, many already into hot-testing of their vehicles and new lessons are being learned every day.

All part of that natural journey toward ultimate success.

First launch from Scotland is tantalisingly close and I can’t wait for it to happen.  

And I have every confidence, that we’ll soon have that end-to-end supply chain capability here in Scotland.

But with that growth increase comes with an increase in our need to take responsibility for the impact we make - to make space a force for good, and to ensure that the concept of sustainability is placed at the very heart of our growth. 

And agendas are evolving – a well known global player in the sector who just so happens to own a Social Media platform made comments this week about cities on Mars.

There is similar commentary about colonisation of the moon.

These things are important – in a world where resources are getting scarcer and competition for them becoming hotter – so that’s why we are having to look further afield.

This creates opportunities outwith our recent focus on the end to end smallsat value chain that has occupied our minds for the last decade.

It’s a fact that Scotland’s space sector has already got a foothold in some areas. James Webb and LIGO are two examples.

And companies like WLGore in Dundee have been contributing to NASA programmes for decades.

I think we need – as a sector – to come together and have a conversation about what we in Scotland can do collectively, and in collaboration.

To capture more of those emerging opportunities, expand our capability and increase the resilience of our sector.

In Scotland, we believe in working together to collectively achieve goals that work for everyone.  

But not only do we want to foster productive partnerships in our country, we want to extend this to our international partners. 

Our partnerships with other countries are key for us. 

Outward looking Scotland always has a presence on the international stage.

Whether it’s the World Expo in Dubai, where Scotland’s first ever Space Strategy was launched, to the regular trade missions organised by Scottish Development International, we mean business.

We want to commit further and examine the potential opportunities out there. 

In Scotland we have had a long running Trade and Investment Envoy programme that plays an important role in helping us deliver this commitment and put us on the global stage. 

The eight envoys we originally appointed in 2017 have been carrying out their mission for a number of years and helping to identify specific business opportunities in new overseas markets where there is currently untapped potential. 

This year, the Scottish Government decided to extend the programme and appoint a sector specific envoy.

And today, I am delighted to announce the appointment today of our newest – space – Trade and Investment envoy, Daniel Smith. 

Daniel’s name has been a constant thread running through Scotland’s space story in the last few years and many of you here will know him already - either through his company Astro Agency, or his activity at Space Scotland, as its interim Chair and later on its Board, or driving the need for environmental responsibility through Scotland’s Sustainability Roadmap.  

He will be representing Scotland and championing our Space sector to the rest of the world.  

I wish him all the best of luck.

We are proud to host the first ever SpaceCom Expo here in Scotland, and walking around here today, it is evident to see what Scotland can offer on the global stage, Scotland is leading the way in new technologies, and we at the Scottish government are extremely proud to support these programs.  

Collaboration is the cornerstone of our national success. 

And we want to continue this with collaboration with our international partners. 

We are confident that we can reach our Space ambitions to be a leading space nation. 

Space is about to take off in Scotland. 

The countdown is underway.

Let’s aim high.