The spaceEU project reached over 3 million people with the organisation of 274 spaceEU activities and produced 518 spaceEU outputs (e.g.: Engage with Space Toolkit) that will ensure the legacy of the project in the future.
Despite the large challenges imposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020 during its implementation phase, the rapid reaction of the Consortium in March 2020 to identify major risks ensured that mitigation actions were in place from the beginning to adapt its plans and ensure that the project's tasks were accomplished.
spaceEU developed the Engage with Space Toolkit, a ready-to-use digital collection of space education activities. The Toolkit includes the Step into Space open source exhibition that empowers visitors to engage with space sciences and show the importance and presence of space science in our daily life. The other Toolkit element is a series of educational and activities to engage citizens with space science and careers. This Toolkit was the basis for the implementation in 10 European countries by the spaceEU Engagement Nodes.
In the framework of the teachers’ professional development activities 1,683 teachers were reached by the spaceEU project. Almost 1,000 teachers were trained by Teacher Training Institutes in 10 European countries. Moreover, the development of the “Our Fragile Planet” MOOC had a very positive impact. With over 600 participants following the course and a 48% completion rate, this MOOC helped teachers feel inspired by and about space science. Finally, two Schools for teachers were organised with participation of 53 teachers.
The spaceEU Community Engagement implementation was deployed in 10 EU countries in 2020, with a total of 141 activities surpassing the initial goal set of 95 activities. The implementation plan was one of the most impacted aspects of the project by the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, the strong network coordination and the flexibility of the 10 Engagement Nodes to adapt their activities to online settings when possible made the implementation a success.
The COVID-19 Pandemic greatly affected the evaluation of actions such as the activities performed by Engagement Nodes due to postponement of activities or the difficulties to gather data for online actions. Efforts were done until the end of the project and exploratory studies were able to be performed. The major outcome is the Impact Evaluation Toolkit, which is designed to help space educators evaluate your audience profile, quality of experience and impact.
spaceEU communication and dissemination actions reached over 2 million people in 123 countries. These actions focused on disseminating the project's activities, outcomes and outputs and relied strongly on social media.
To advocate for the importance of inclusive education and public engagement to the European space sector, 2 policy briefs were developed. Moreover, the project set up online meetings with 10 Members of the European Parliament from 5 countries and 30 prominent textbook publishers to advocate for space education. spaceEU collaborated with the H2020 project Our Space Our Future on the organisation of the online workshop Space Science for Societal Challenges that brought together 94 stakeholders from the European space sector to discuss models for collaboration across the sector to contribute effectively to societal challenges. The input from all participants was captured in a white paper.
