TRANSFER of space technologies into non-space applications can have many benefits for people on Earth. The knowledge has been used in a range of areas, including to improve air purification in hospital intensive-care wards; monitor offshore oil and gas fields, and help manufacturers to develop/improve new and existing products.

In one of the latest developments in the UK, space researchers and enterprise experts from Leicester University, England, have teamed up to offer a new "business-facing" service that harnesses space technology for Earth-bound benefits.

The global space technology exchange partnership - called G-Step for short - has been established in order to support business and public-sector organisations in using state-of-the-art Earth observation information technology. Its director, Professor Paul Monks, said: "The exploitation of this technology is expected to have a major impact on business operations and competitiveness."

The new knowledge-exchange hub will enable researchers from the university's chemistry, geography and physics and astronomy departments to work with the university's enterprise and business development office.

It was launched by Dr Valere Moutarlier, head of the European Union's Global Monitoring for the Environment & Security bureau, along with Dr Steven Briggs, head of Earth Observation, Applications & Future Technologies at the European Space Agency, and Dr David Williams, head of the British National Space Centre.

Professor Monks added: "We are being pro-active and going to the business community and saying, what are the issues you would like solving? Then, using a model of innovating, partnering or brokering, providing the solution from our knowledge base.

"In practical terms, we will work with business partners to develop value-added services that exploit environmental data from the GMES [Global Monitoring for the Environment & Security] system. In this way, we will be promoting EO [Earth observation] businesses rather than competing with them."

He continued: "A practical example of this is using space data as part of an air-pollution forecast system, similar to a weather forecast, to deliver messages to vulnerable people's mobile phones reminding them to take their medication with them. This helps people, particularly those suffering from asthma as well as having the potential to reduce hospital admissions."

G-Step will exploit innovation opportunities made available by the EU/ESA Global Monitoring for Environment & Security programme set up to apply data from satellite, aerial and ground-based Earth observation to information and decision-making products and services.

Co-director Dr John Remedios predicted: "EO data will become a revolutionary environment information technology, delivering a new, at-your-fingertips ‘view of your world' in a similar way to GPS for transport and forecasting for weather services."

Underlining the wider implications for business and industry of technology transfer from the space sector, the European Space Agency (ESA) recently set up its first UK base at the Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in southern England. Its aim is to capitalise on the UK's world-leading expertise in space science, Earth observation and related technologies.

Meanwhile, the UK's Science & Technology Facilities Council's Innovations company, which has a long track record of establishing 15 successful spin-out companies, has been chosen to lead the ESA's technology-transfer programme in the UK.

Chief executive Tim Bestwick said: "In the current climate all organisations are even more aware of the need to share their experience and knowledge. A new technology is usually developed to meet a specific need, but can often have many more uses which could be exploited." The ESA programme has already led to more than 220 successful transfers of space technologies to non-space sectors.

The UK facility will focus on three key areas:

* combining data and images from space satellites to create applications for everyday life - such as automatic safety-of-life location services and ways of using space data to improve road/rail transportation;

* climate-change modelling using space data;

* developing technologies such as novel power sources and innovative robotics, first used in space.