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Topics of expertise include:

  • Skills needs and shortages
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  • Space sector diversity
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The Space Skills Alliance is a not-for-profit think tank and consultancy working to address the skills shortage in the space sector.

It was set up in September 2019 by Joseph Dudley and Heidi Thiemann, who previously created SpaceCareers.uk, and have won multiple awards for their contributions to the space sector.

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Press > Press Release

Space Skills Alliance to lead development of EU space competencies framework

The Space Skills Alliance is leading the development of a European space competencies framework as part of a major new Horizon Europe project, launched last month.

The ASTRAIOS project logo, a stylised rocket flare leaving Earth and heading into space

Analysing space skills across the EU-27

Over the next three years, the ASTRAIOS project (Analysis of Skills, Training, Research, And Innovation Opportunities in Space) will identify space-related education and training across Europe, project future demand for space skills, and identify actions to align and improve the career pathways into the sector.

The project will also focus on understanding the workforce, who they are, where they work, and how they go into the space sector, using data from sector-wide surveys, LinkedIn, and CVs to map and analyse career pathways.

The Space Skills Alliance will lead in the creation of a skills taxonomy, building on its UK-focused SpaceCRAFT competencies framework. The new Europe-wide framework will be suitable for the upstream, midstream, and downstream, including technical and transferable skills, and translated into multiple languages. A shared competencies framework makes recruitment and training easier by enabling employers, employees, and education providers to align on what they need and what they offer.

The Space Skills Alliance will also support other partners in understanding the European space sector’s demographics, career pathways, and skills needs, drawing on expertise gathered through the creation of the Space Census, Space Training Catalogue, and UK Space Skills Landscape Map.

Benefitting the UK space sector

As one of the largest contributors to the European Space Agency’s budget, and with companies based across the continent, collaboration is built into the very fabric of the UK space sector. Although ASTRAIOS is focused on the EU-27, the project will bring benefits to the UK space sector.

Much of the baseline statistics used by ASTRAIOS originated from the UK space sector. Continuing to analyse and map these same statistics will provide useful and up-to-date comparison data for both the UK and EU. The project will also extend analysis of curricula to the UK, mapping space-related higher education and training opportunities, and develop training courses which will be accessible to learners in the UK.

A European collaboration

ASTRAIOS is a consortium of ten partners from across the EU and UK, coordinated by the European Science Foundation (ESF). The consortium consists of European Science Foundation (France), AZO Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (Germany), EASN Technology Innovation Services (Belgium), International Space University (France), ITC University of Twente (Netherlands), SME4Space (Belgium), Space Skills Alliance (UK), Space Y (France), Technical University of Crete (Greece), and the University of Strathclyde (UK).

Funded by EU Horizon and UKRI

ASTRAIOS is a Horizon Europe Coordination and Support Action (CSA), improving cooperation among EU and associated countries to strengthen the European Research Area. The project will run for three years from January 2023 until December 2025.

ASTRAIOS is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Framework Programme under grant agreement No. 101082636, with a total budget of €2,239,400. UK partners are funded by UKRI under the Horizon Europe guarantee.

To find out more about ASTRAIOS:

Funded by the European Union
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