The ESA's Centre in Harwell is a research centre located in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. Its focus is on three areas:
- ‘integrated applications’, which is the combined use of different space and terrestrial technologies, data and infrastructures to create new everyday applications;
- climate change modelling using data from space;
- and developing new technologies for the next era of planetary exploration, including robotics and innovative power sources that could be used on the Moon and Mars.
The Centre hosts the ESA Climate Office and also runs activities in the domains of Space Exploration. It supports the use of space technology in downstream domains through Integrated Applications, technology transfer activities and a Business Incubator.states.
The ESA research centre in the United Kingdom, opened on July 2009. It is based at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire.
The ESA Harwell Centre is supporting as welll a Business Incubation Centre (BIC). It provides a unique opportunity for startup companies to access world class scientific facilities and research including that of the Diamond Light Source and STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) – home to its internationally renowned space science department RAL Space, the world’s most powerful pulsed neutron source ISIS and the Central Laser Facility.