The Director, Nina Costa, has almost 30 years of experience in studies of the status, structure and size of markets for satellite navigation (GPS, Galileo, EGNOS) and Earth observation (EO).  Dr Costa was extensively involved in market assessments for Europe’s satellite navigation system, Galileo, and socio-economic studies for the European Commission’s GMES programme. Over the last 15 years she has also gained experience in working with African organizations (e.g. national Service Providers, Regional Economic Community organizations, and the African Union) and in particular South Africa, as well as the European Commission’s DG-Development and the European Investment Bank (EIB), regarding the implementation of an improved navigation system (SBAS) for civil aviation. Dr Costa has extensive experience in cost benefit analyses for space programmes and has worked with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). From 2016-2019 she was involved in business case and sustainability analyses for a number of EO and citizen observatory projects.

More recently, she was involved in a project under the COSME programme, and lead activities that investigated the skills gaps, the state of play and the market keys (opportunities and barriers) for the entrepreneurial entities operating in the EO downstream sector. Currently Dr Costa is involved in collating user requirements and conducting an impact analysis for a non-space HE project. In addition, she is very actively involved in a project linked to the European Green Deal which supports city authorities to plant more urban trees. More specifically, she will develop the business model and business case for commercialising the decision support toolbox to be developed under this project.

Dr Costa has a strong academic background in Physics and a PhD in Radiation Biology. She completed an MBA at the University of Warwick, UK in 1995 with a specialisation in marketing. Since then, she has consulted for and worked at the EC’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and in the private sector.