Previous events
ESA Industry Space Days 2026
ESA Industry Space Days 2026: record turnout, strong Dutch presence
The 12th ESA Industry Space Days (ISD) took place on 16-17 September 2026 at ESTEC in Noordwijk, and was the largest edition to date. Around 240 exhibitors and more than 3,000 participants attended, representing 1,500 companies from across the European space sector. Attendees pre-arranged over 10,000 pre-arranged business to business meetings, with many more face-to-face encounters on site. More than 50 presentations were delivered across three conference halls.
Industry Meeting: Sustainability in Big Science at HFML-FELIX
On 2 September, BigScience.NL brought together representatives from industry and research organisations at HFML-FELIX in Nijmegen for an industry meeting dedicated to sustainability. Marc Baldus, Director of HFML-FELIX and profile holder for sustainability within the Dutch NWO institutes, opened the meeting and set the stage for open and lively discussions on this important and timely topic.
Small Satellite Conference USA
Dutch Space Sector Connects at the 40th Annual Small Satellite Conference
23–26 August 2026, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
The Annual Small Satellite Conference (SmallSat) brought together around 5,000 government, industry, and academic professionals for technical papers, short courses, panels, and exhibits on the technologies driving today's small satellite constellations. Under the theme "The Clouds Above the Clouds," this year's edition celebrated 40 years of collaboration in a sector that has grown from a handful of pioneers into a global ecosystem powering navigation, Earth observation, and communications missions worldwide. Over the past four decades, the small satellite community has transformed from a dedicated few pioneers working on shoestring budgets into a global ecosystem of commercial, government, and academic innovators.
SPIE 2026
Dutch Astronomical Instrumentation Community Shines at SPIE 2026 in Copenhagen
5–10 July 2026, Copenhagen, Denmark
The astronomical engineering world gathered in Copenhagen for SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, the leading international conference on ground-based, airborne, and space-based telescopes and the instruments that power them. The event drew more than 3,000 attendees from across the globe, who took part in 13 simultaneous technical conferences featuring over 3,000 presentations on the latest research, technology, and project developments in astronomical instrumentation.
IPAC26
BigScience.NL hosted five Dutch high-tech companies in the BigScience.NL booth at the IPAC26 in Deauville, France with over 1500 delegates participating from countries all over the world. This conference with also an industrial fair with about 100 booths, focuses on the use of accelerators in many domains and applications. The attending Dutch companies used the conference and fair to strengthen and expand their international networks in both the scientific and the industrial domain supported by Meike Arnold and Jan Visser.
Dutch Fusion Day 2026
What’s needed to move from physics to actual machines
During the third edition of the Dutch Fusion Day on Friday 8 May, 2026, industry, start-ups and research partners shared their views on how to establish the required supply chains for large scale development and deployment of fusion reactors. This year’s edition of the annual event for the Dutch fusion sector organized by DIFFER, TU/e, and BigScienceNL, welcomed some 200 participants to the DIFFER premises.
2nd Annual Fusion Fest
London, 14 April 2026. The financial magazine The Economist organised its second annual Fusion Fest in the City of London. 688 participants gathered in an anonymous but chic office and conference building next to the “middle-class brutalist” Barbican Estate: the biggest and arguably most controversial housing project in the city developed after the Second World War.
Industry meeting & INPROCAP @ ASTRON
The industry meeting at ASTRON, Dwingeloo was another great opportunity for companies to connect with the Big Science domain. A first general presentation about the BigScience.NL network and its activities was followed by presentations by the Industrial Liaison Officers about their organizations and future opportunities for companies in Big Science organizations. This time, a unique INPROCAP session was part of the program, with presentations of specific challenges from CERN, EUXfel and ESO for which they would like input from industry. All challenges brought lively discussions and suggestions, hopefully the start of fruitful collaborations!