AIMday Space Technologies

Is your company active in the space sector, and are you facing a technical challenge that could benefit from academic expertise? Researchers from five of Scotland’s leading universities are ready to help you generate innovative solutions at AIMday Space Technologies. Join us at The Studio in Glasgow or online on 27 October and speak to academics from the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, Heriot-Watt University, University of St Andrews and University of Strathclyde, who have the relevant expertise and are motivated to work on your challenge.

What is AIMday?

AIMdays are made up of purpose-built focused workshops where companies and organisations bring real-world challenges and discuss them with academics from across the participating institutions, enabling exploration of new solutions, de-risking of innovation, and identification of potential partners for future collaboration.

Read more about the AIMday Concept.

AIMday Space Technologies

The global space industry is experiencing rapid growth, driven by increasing demand for satellite-based services, space exploration, and the development of new space technologies. Scotland offers an end‑to‑end space innovation environment anchored by spaceport and launch developments, upstream manufacturing and payload expertise, and a strong downstream space-derived services.

This AIMday brings industry and Scotland’s top five universities together to turn challenge into collaborative projects, with the potential to be supported by seed funding for early scoping and a route to larger bids and co‑investment in early 2027.

What challenges can you bring?

We're calling on forward-thinking small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and global industry leaders, who are pioneering spacecraft, payload, launch system, in-orbit service, ground segment, and space-enabled solutions, to share their real-world challenges with us.

Submit a challenge relating to any stage in the value chain: upstream, midstream/ground and in‑orbit services, downstream space‑enabled solutions, or cross‑cutting enabling technologies.

What do we offer?

This AIMday provides a single front door to the academic expertise across Scotland’s top universities spanning the end-to-end space sector; Together, we offer leading capabilities from launch and spaceports, to satellite design and engineering, in‑orbit services, ground services, and space-enabled solutions.

Our comprehensive expertise across science and engineering offers unique access to a range of space-specific enabling technologies including space communications, photonics, quantum technologies, data and computational science, advanced manufacturing and materials, and robotics. In addition, we provide cross-cutting expertise in space sustainability and share a commitment to responsible research and innovation.

Find out more about Our Expertise here.