Open Science Innovation in PhD programme through Earth Observation: towards new career skills development

Projektinformationen

InnEO Space_PhD

ID Finanzhilfevereinbarung: 101006275

DOI

10.3030/101006275

Projekt abgeschlossen

EK-Unterschriftsdatum 2 November 2020

Startdatum 1 Dezember 2020

Enddatum 31 Mai 2023

Finanziert unter

• Make scientific and technological careers attractive to young students, and forster sustainable interaction between schools, research institutions, industry and civil society organisations

Gesamtkosten

€ 311 625,00

EU-Beitrag

€ 311 625,00

Koordiniert durch

UNIVERSITE TOULOUSE II-JEAN JAURES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - InnEO Space_PhD (Open Science Innovation in PhD programme through Earth Observation: towards new career skills development)

Berichtszeitraum: 2020-12-01 bis 2023-05-31

Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts

Over the last decade there has been a continuous growth in innovation, which is a key factor in the competitiveness. Students' skills acquisition are essential to enhance their employability. Higher education institutions need to ensure that they equip their graduates with the appropriate and up-to-date skills. However, 40% of European employers have expressed difficulty in finding people with the right skills.

InnEO Space PhD is a H2020 project designed to create new synergies between PhD students and researchers and potential employers and specifically tackle future skills mismatches. The goal is to prepare young researchers for a successful career by developing modernized and transferable PhD courses and learning resources based on innovation skills and employers’ needs as well as in-depth knowledge of high stakes and approaches of Earth Observation in any application domains. The Inn’EO Space PhD project develop researchers’ innovation-oriented mindset and skills through Earth Observation, that offers a multidisciplinary approach and applications in various sectors (environment, climate change, crisis management…).

InnEO'Space_PhD relies on a consortium of European partners across 3 European countries (FR, IT, RO). This consortium collaborates with companies, SMEs and clusters.
Together, they organise activities such as the InnEO schools with a focus on Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation, Open science and innovation and soft skills, as well as Startech training programs on entrepreneurial skills. All activities include career development aspects to raise awareness about opportunities in and outside academia. In addition, to respond to the needs of digitalisation and facilitate the implementation by other universities, the activities are organised face-to-face and online relying on newly developed and later open SPOCs, methodology and material.

Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse

All the deliverables and actions completed and 8 milestones have been achieved. The activities developed within this period have been focused on different specific tasks:

Within WP1 “Project Management”, management actions were carried out, including interactions with internal and external partners, procedures for optimizing work and documents in compliance to financial, administrative and gender equality issues in all project activities. UT2J organizes a monthly meeting. A DMP was developped as well as a gender equality plan.

The first months of WP2 “Schools for skills development and excellence research with EO applications” were dedicated to develop researchers’ excellence in artificial intelligence for Earth observation and soft skills via the organisation of the first InnEO’Space PhD pilot. This InnEO school was organized face-to-face in Romania in July 2021 and involved 40 students and 13 professors and lecturers. The aim of the training was to enhance their EO skills and machine learning knowledge while developing re-usable lecturing and training materials. A plan to articulate the selection procedure and delivery of the InnEO schools was designed, along with training material to support its successful implementation, as well as satisfaction surveys on learning content. The second InnEO School was remote and involved 48 students.

The WP3 “Coaching PhD students toward innovative spirit” focused on the organization of a Startech training designed to develop PhD students' entrepreneurship mindset. This Startech was developed from the Stratech program developed by UT2J in the European project FabSpace for Earth Observation data-driven applications. Following a call for participation, the first InnEO Startech was run in on line in April 2021 involving 11 PhD students from diverse backgrounds(COVID pandemic and lock downs). The online training was coached remotely by researchers and non-academic experts with the aim of developing their taste for entrepreneurship spirit through the creation of a marketable project The second and third startechs involed 29 students, for a total of 40 students who benefit from this entrepreneurship training.

The WP4 “ InnEO’Space technology for PhD programs modernization” focuses on designing an open and integrated a InnEO platform boosting learning, professional and community resources. As learning resources developed to unfold the benefits of complementary modules which could be used by other Universities programs, thwo SPOCs were created based on the training program from the Earth Observation and Machine Learning summer school. A third SPOC what created based on the program of the Startech program. A crash course to prepare hackhaton was also developed as a SPOC.

Within WP5 “Career development for PhD students” the objective is to develop a transferable strategy to monitor PhD graduates and their success of the job market. Qualitative and qualitative surveys were developed in order to identify weaknesses on PhD programs and to assess the skills needed in industry to shape future PhD programs. A career development skills self-assessment was also developed.

Within WP6 “Dissemination and exploitation” several key actions were carried out in order to raise European citizens' awareness. These actions include branding toolkits, designing and setting up of a new website, social networks activation and press releases. A PEDR was delivered and included detailed measures for dissemination and exploitation as well as the 3Os strategy.

Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)

Inn’EO Space PhD is expected to significantly impact the labour market as it responds to the growing need for high skilled workers in order to ensure competitiveness. Progress beyond the state of the art lies in the creation of new job opportunities promoting the growth of qualified employment : the Inn’EO Space PhD project represents a new advance in the fast- changing work environment, helps to eliminate the gap between PhD students and researchers with potential employers, and provides new business opportunities thanks to skill development.

The Inn’EO Space PhD project also stimulates the integration of Earth Observation (EO) into society and bring benefits to European PhD students and researchers. Its ultimate goal is to stand for academic excellence for future scientific leaders in any field related to EO, enlarging their training and experience with soft skills, environment monitoring, open science and entrepreneurship that are necessary for innovation at any level. In addition, it contributes to European research and ecosystem.

The main activities of the project focused on the concept of open education, meaning InnEO e-learning courses are freely available to all universities and beyond in an open manner. This innovative approach is useful for any university who wants to foster new careers for PhD students and researchers from any domain by providing them with transferable skills to fit the European industry and stakeholder needs. FabSpace 2.0 network and AV hubs will be active in re-using the developed material.

The results of Inn’EO Space PhD have already been reused in other projects and in master courses. This re-use will continue at least until 2025 in Toulouse. UT2J received new funding to update the course and use them (500 lecturing hours for the next 5 years) as well as a grant of 10 k€ to continue the network activities. UNITBV was successful in AI4Agri project, UT2J and UoRT are partner in to develop a new laboratory for AI for agriculture.

1rst Startech in Toulouse (Remote)

1rst summer school in Brashov