Our Partners
The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an organisation with an important role in the promotion of scientific research and innovation in Europe, especially via exchanges between scientific communities and other societal sectors, including those in policy making, industry and civil society. Based on the extensive experience in project and community management and coordination, ESF is leading WP 5000 Management. The ESF has also been active in the European space sector since its creation in 1973, by hosting the European Space Sciences Committee (ESSC), as well as active participation in ESA and EC space programmes. Taking advantage of its extensive network amongst space agencies and space scientists, ESF will help bring agency and scientific communities’ insights into the project (WP 2000). ESF, as a boundary and independent organisation, will also lead the consortium efforts on producing the project final recommendations, Task 3400.
AZO-Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO) is an international networking and branding company for European space programmes, supporting space entrepreneurship with over 1000 Start-Ups network in Europe since 2004. AZO provides advisory services to public, institutional, and industrial clients for a wide range of areas, with a focus on the market uptake of the EU Space programme and the commercialisation of space, including innovation and entrepreneurial programmes, global community and ecosystem building, communications and outreach, conferences, and events. These include the “Innovation Masters Series”, the most important space-related innovation competitions: Galileo Masters, Copernicus Masters, INNOspace Masters, ESA BIC Bavaria, EGNOS for the development of a European innovation ecosystem for innovation/entrepreneurship, as well as the Copernicus Hackathons. AZO will lead the consortium in Task 2400 to analyse the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices in the Space entrepreneurship ecosystem.
ITC University of Twente (Twente) is recognized worldwide for achievements in teaching, research, and capacity development in the field of Geo-information science and Earth Observation (EO). With extensive links to the EU upstream and downstream sector of EO and based on their experience in both curricula analysis and course production, Twente will provide leadership in WP1000 Status Quo, leading the effort of the project to analyse the current European educational offering.
SME4Space (S4S) is a European association of ~900 European enterprises, including SMEs and large enterprises and universities, with the mission to voice the Space SMEs’ viewpoint in a coordinated way and to facilitate the access of SMEs to space activities in general and to ESA and EU programmes in particular. SME4Space will lead the Task 2200 Applications, Services and Supporting Technologies and Task 2500 Workforce Demand Evolution and Distribution.
University of Strathclyde (UStrath) is a leading technological university with space as one of the 6 core strategic research themes, and has the largest space research group in the UK. The Aerospace Centre of Excellence (ACE) develops frontier research on innovative concepts and solutions for present and future space systems, aerospace transport, space exploration, satellite applications and the sustainable exploitation and exploration of space. UStrath will lead the implementation of WP3000 by analysing the gaps hindering the progress and success of the space industry and by providing a set of recommendations to policy makers at the EU and national level, and educational institutions regarding the future of the EU space sector.
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EASN Technology Innovation Services (EASN) brings to the project the European Aeronautics Science Network, with ~400 members, affiliated to almost all significant universities active in the European aerospace ecosystem, from all European countries. This will ensure the reach of the project to the whole Academic community in an unparalleled fashion. ASTRAIOS will utilise the extensive EASN network to gather information regarding the status quo of European Space Sector education. EASN-TIS also has extensive EU framework project experience in communication and dissemination activities and thus will lead the WP4000 Communication, ensuring the impact of the project results.
The International Space University (ISU) is the sole university worldwide devoted to space. It is an institution that offers a variety of educational programs to students and space professionals in an international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary environment (Masters programme, Summer Sessions, Executive Education) also in connection with its incubator dedicated to space. ISU is supported by major space agencies, research organisations, and industry players in Europe and beyond, ensuring a major reach. With a wide network of alumni (1837 in EU-27 and Associated States alone) and a Resident Faculty covering all areas of the space sector, as well as extensive experience in Ed Tech and digital learning and executive education, ISU will lead efforts of the project regarding the soft skills and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in the space sector (WP2000 & WP3000), as well as oversight over project MOOC productions (WP4000).
The Technical University of Crete (TUC) is distinguished in the Space informatics field, including Global navigation satellite system (GNSS), EO, IT and Uncrewed Aerial Systems areas. The Space Informatics Research Unit belongs to the Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering Laboratory, which operates a regional network of 17 permanent CORS (continuously operating reference stations) GNSS stations established over the island of Crete. TUC also hosts the Permanent Facility for Altimeter Calibration supported by ESA and serves as the flagship of the calibration and validation of the European Copernicus Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-6 altimetry missions, while it is the first permanent Cal/Val facility in the world which attains the European Space Agency strategy for Fiducial Reference Measurements for Altimetry. TUC will participate to ASTRAIOS with its network and provide educational materials and courses focusing on GNSS within WP4000.
FDC is an independent consultancy and research company created in 1989, specialised in the field of space applications and based in Vincennes (France). The company brings extensive experience in Satellite Navigation, Communications and/or Earth Observation and Security. FDC has a perfect understanding of all technical issues from the definition of the mission of space infrastructures and services to the design of application terminals and chipsets. Over the past 35 years, FDC has provided expertise to private and public stakeholders of both the civilian and the military domains.). FDC is also an active across numerous professional associations and fora hereby providing the company with a strong network: First TF, EARSC, Space Y, Systematic – Paris Region Digital Ecosystem, the European Maritime Radionavigation Forum. FDC will provide access to its network to ASTRAIOS, covering the GNSS downstream sector (WP2000 and WP4000).
Space Skills Alliance (SSA), is an SME specialising in space sector skills gap analysis, bringing together insights from both space sector knowledge and modern data analytics techniques. The Space Skills Alliance will bring their expert knowledge on survey design, data analytics, web and social media automation and data mining and help the consortium partners in data gathering activities (WP1000) and survey design and analysis (WP1000, 2000, 3000). They have published reports and analysis on skills demand, job advert quality, and skills taxonomies, as well as a toolkit of resources for better recruiting in the space sector. They were also selected to conduct the first national census of the UK space sector in 2020 and published the first comprehensive demographic statistics and the first pay data for the sector, and a report on the experiences of women in space, all based on the Census results.