Three days at Fiera Roma combining an exhibition, a scientific conference, a startup pitch competition and an education programme, built on the argument that space is now an economic and geopolitical subject rather than a scientific one.
The New Space Economy European Expoforum, usually shortened to NSE, is Italy's annual space economy event, held at Fiera Roma. The 2026 edition runs from 25 to 27 November and is the eighth. It is organised by Fiera Roma in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency, and carries the theme "Space Reloaded: Recreating the Future". The format combines an exhibition of public and private sector organisations, a technical and scientific conference curated by a scientific committee, a startup pitch competition, an education hub, an arena programme and a careers area. Its stated audience is public and private decision makers, emerging startups, institutions and academic communities.
NSE positions space explicitly as an economic, industrial and geopolitical subject rather than a scientific frontier, and the programme reflects that: technological content sits alongside the ethical, political and economic dimensions of space expansion. That framing is not neutral. It is the case Italy has been making for a decade, that a country with a strong industrial base and a mid-sized space budget competes better on downstream applications, manufacturing and services than on flagship missions.
The practical consequence is a floor plan that mixes categories most European space fairs keep apart. Bremen is a supply chain show, Paris in September is an executive week, Brussels is a policy conference. Rome puts a startup pitch, a student careers area and a prime contractor stand in the same halls, which produces a less focused event and a more porous one.
The conference is curated by a scientific committee and covers commercial space markets, downstream applications, space and geopolitics, financing and the European and Italian industrial base. TechTables, introduced in the 2025 edition, are technical boards that connect experts with exhibitors in a working format rather than a panel. The startup pitch competition and the education hub are the two elements that pull in the younger end of the sector, and the careers showcase makes the recruitment intent explicit.
Both, with an Italian centre of gravity. The name says European and the exhibitor list is international, but the institutional backbone is the Italian Space Agency and the strongest representation is Italian and Mediterranean.
It is deliberately both, plus an education programme. The exhibition and the scientific conference run in parallel across the three days.
It depends on your target. If you sell into the Italian industrial base or want exposure to Italian institutional programmes, it is the efficient way to do it. If you need the pan-European supply chain, Bremen in November is the better use of the same week.
Fiera Roma is the Rome exhibition centre operator and the commercial organiser. The Italian Space Agency, ASI, provides the institutional partnership and much of the programme's credibility, which is what distinguishes NSE from a purely commercial fair. The event has also worked with the Space Foundation, the American organisation behind the Space Symposium.
Rome's bet that the space economy needs an Italian address, and the only major European space fair that puts startups, students and primes on the same floor.
Visitor registration and exhibitor booking run through the official website. Delegate and visitor pricing was not published on the public pages at the verification date; exhibition space and sponsorship are quoted by the Fiera Roma sales team, reachable on the numbers listed on the site. The startup pitch competition and the education hub operate their own application processes with their own deadlines, so anyone intending to pitch should watch the site from early autumn rather than arriving with a deck.
25 to 27 November 2026 at Fiera Roma, Via Portuense 1645, 00148 Rome.
Pricing was not published on the event website at the verification date.
Fiera Roma has its own station, Fiera di Roma, on the FL1 regional line, which runs directly from Fiumicino airport in about ten minutes and from Rome Trastevere and Tiburtina in the other direction. The site is well outside the historic centre, so plan on the train rather than a taxi.
Third-party listings carried December dates for the 2026 edition at one point. Both the organiser's site and Fiera Roma's own calendar state 25 to 27 November 2026, which is the date used here.
| Official website | https://www.nseexpoforum.com/ |
| Venue listing | https://www.fieraroma.it/en/evento/nse-new-space-economy-european-expoforum/ |
| Italian Space Agency | https://www.asi.it/ |