Towards a Skilled Europe for Space Innovation

ASTRAIOS is a Horizon Europe Coordination and Support Action (CSA) that successfully kicked-off in January 2023 and which will run until December 2025.

It aims to provide an exhaustive view and understanding of the current and future offer of Space curricula and courses in the EU-27. The project will characterise the demand from the European Space industry and identify actionable ways towards better alignment between the educational offer and the skills required by the future European space industry. This will foster innovation and increase EU competitiveness in the space sector.

The project will start by mapping the educational offer across the EU-27 at Bachelor, Master, postgraduate and continuing education levels. This will include measuring the average time and cost required for a degree leading to a career in the space sector. A socio-economic analysis of the population of students enrolled in space-related studies will be performed, which will create a Europe-wide space competencies and skills taxonomy within the European academic offer for the space sector.

The project will then analyse future trends and challenges of the EU space sector. The analysis will cover current and future needs in technical skills and soft skills, such as collaborative working, multicultural aspects, multidisciplinary approaches, creative thinking, etc. that future European students and professionals will need to develop.

Based on the identification and understanding of future needs, the project will carry out a full assessment of the adequacy between space curricula and sector needs.

As such, AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen will lead the development of a Report on best Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices in the space entrepreneurship ecosystem targeting the adequacy between space curricula and industry needs. This will enable the harmonisation of the industry needs and educational offer across the EU-27 over the next 10-15 years and include the standardising of career opportunities for students enrolled in European universities. The project will also develop course modules related to Earth Observation (EO) and Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) to promote space jobs and careers.

ASTRAIOS will be implemented thanks to a highly competent consortium, including International Space University, European Science Foundation (Project Coordinator) and University of Strathclyde that directly connect to all major space related educational institutions in Europe. It will generate impactful results such as final recommendations for EU policymakers and other relevant stakeholders, which will benefit the European education, industry and the space community at large.

With partners like AZO, the project has the necessary networks and deep knowledge of the entire space industrial application sectors to cover the complete EU industrial base and produce actionable ways to generate meaningful and lasting impacts.

The project is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Framework Programme with a total budget of €2,239,400.

For more information about ASTRAIOS, browse here: https://lnkd.in/d3UG-vZ3
ASTRAIOS official website will be launched soon – stay tuned!

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