Nicolas Peter is Acting President at the International Space University (ISU) and serves also as Professor of practice in Space Policy and International Affairs and is the ISU Resident Faculty responsible for Space Policy, Economics, and Law (PEL) education and activities. At ISU he is also the head of the ISU Incubator and launched the “Space Policy and Entrepreneurship lab” (SPEL) that is a dedicated research laboratory addressing the issues and trends in the domains of space policy and the space economy, including New Space worldwide. Prof. Peter is seconded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Prior to his appointment at ISU, Nicolas Peter has been the first Head of International Affairs at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) where he led the development of the first internationalization strategy for the organisation. Prof. Peter has also been working at the European Commission supporting among other the 2016 EC Space Strategy development and initiatives linked to space policy, space research and entrepreneurship. He has also been working at ESA in the Director General’s Cabinet and Strategy department including on the development of Agenda 2015 or the space exploration strategy for Europe, as well as the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), the George Washington University’s (GWU) Space Policy Institute, and was a Research Fellow at the X PRIZE Foundation.
Prof. Peter has 20+ years of international experience in space policy on 4 continents and 8 countries. He has published over 120 reports, book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, and presented at international conferences related to space activities. He has also co-edited three books on space affairs. Prof Peter is on the Editorial Board of the New Space Journal and is a regular peer-reviewer for the Journals Space Policy and Acta Astronautica. He is also member of the Board of Director of the Women in Aerospace Europe (WIA-E) in charge of corporate relations and partnerships and an Honorary Board Member of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) and a winner of the inaugural IAF Young Space Leader award.
Nicolas Peter holds a Bachelor of Geography from the Louis Pasteur University (ULP) (Strasbourg, France), and 2 Master’s degrees in Space Systems and Environment and in Space Technology Applications from the ULP. He is also a graduate from the ISU’s Master in Space Studies program and hold a Master of International Science and Technology Policy from the GWU’s Elliott School of International Affairs (Washington D.C., USA). He attended business Executive Education courses on policy evaluation, strategy development, strategic performance management and prospective at ESSEC (France) (2), HEC (France), Cranfield (UK) and the Manchester Business School (UK).