Francesco Barbato is a Policy Officer at the ‘Innovation, Start-ups and Economics’ Unit in the Directorate General Defence Industry and Space (DEFIS) of the European Commission. His work focuses space Research (H2020, Horizon Europe), the Space entrepreneurship programme CASSINI, and supporting the uptake of digital technologies such as AI and HPC in Space. He joined the European Commission in 2008 at DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology where he managed the EU’s R&D programme on Big Data technologies and the Public-Private Partnership underpinning it, and contributed to developing policy and innovation support initiatives for the European Data Economy. Francesco holds a university degree in Earth Sciences from the University of Rome and he is specialized in Remote Sensing of the Earth.