IPN welcomes, since late 2014, the incubation centre of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Portugal (ESA BIC Portugal). In this structure, one of the ten current ESA incubation centers right across Europe, are supported startups that use space technology for industrial and commercial non-space uses, such as health, energy, transport, security and urban life, among others.

The ESA BIC Portugal was launched jointly with the European Space Agency and the Foundation for Science and Technology and is led by Pedro Nunes Institute, in collaboration with the Science and Technology Park, University of Porto and the DNA Cascais agency. The projects are supported with 50,000 euros for the construction of prototypes and acquisition of intellectual property, business and technical support, as well as access to a wide network of potential customers, partners and investors. To select the projects, evaluation procedures to select the projects are led by the European Space Agency with the support of the Portuguese partners. Applications are open permanently and evaluated 3 times a year.