CNES Strategic Plan 2001–2005

Abstract

CNES's latest strategic plan defines the French space agency's strategic focus and charts its course for the 2001–2005 timeframe. Based on a vision of how the space sector will evolve over the period up to 2010, the Strategic Plan sets out the agency's ambition for 2005: “ CNES—space technology serving society”. This ambition is structured around four challenges: • Focusing actions on society's needs in three areas where space technology can make a major difference—environment, science and the information society and mobility. • Building the foundation for success by ensuring competitive access to space and boosting basic research and technological innovation. • Strengthening national and European synergies to ensure complementarity between: ∘ the ESA European framework, which is well adapted for major projects and the development of a European Space Strategy (ESS); ∘ and the national framework to support activities of national responsibility such as defence, science and technology development, and to improve competitiveness through direct international cooperation with other space agencies. • Forging effective partnerships with its research and industry partners in Europe and France to enhance performance by: ∘ developing a service culture; ∘ building partnerships; ∘ concentrating on core competencies where it can most add value; ∘ improving skills and responsiveness in line with its strategic position; ∘ ensuring transparent and rigorous management of public funds. This Strategic Plan will be implemented in the 2001–2005 timeframe at all management levels. Implementation will be eased by the fact that the plan has been drawn up through a specific process designed to make internal management aware of the analysis underlying it. This will ensure that all stakeholders understand and appropriate the plan's orientations and thus play an active role in CNES’ development. This process involved five successive steps: • shared assessment of the space sector's evolution, providing a common baseline from which to build on CNES's vision; • shared ambition, defining the agency's objectives and strategic focus; • applying lines of action at each of the agency's four space centres through specifically targeted action plans at centre and process level; • setting up of a monitoring and oversight structure; • definition of a communication strategy to support management of change, designed to keep all CNES personnel informed about the plan and the process behind it.