Education

ESA ESTEC and the world-class Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities (LDE) form the knowledge anchors of NL Space Campus. Together we have many fruitful collaborations that connect students with the space sector.

Our interdisciplinary education programmes, masterclasses and workshops are important for bridging gaps between knowledge and the application of knowledge, for future collaborations and innovations, and for the preparation of the talents who will answer future societal and industrial challenges.

ESA ESTEC

With 100 PHD’s, 100 Young Graduates and several education programmes ESA ESTEC hosts and educates a lot of international bright young minds. ESA ESTEC also has its own education programmes, such as the Young Graduate Traineeship, the CEMS programme and ESERO.

ESA YGT Programme

ESA ESTEC hosts yearly 100 YGT’s in Noordwijk. The ESA YGT Programme offers young graduates with a Master the unique opportunity to work on inspiring space missions at the heart of European space activities.

CEMS Programme

The CEMS-ESA block seminar is an intense, 5-day workshop for business students from Rotterdam School of Management and the CEMS global alliance of management education (CEMS.org). The programme is developed in close collaboration with ESA Space Solutions. In this week, students develop a deeper understanding of the industry and its business opportunities’ while working on consultancy assignments with ESA-BIC startup companies, and on challenges how to develop new commercial applications of space technologies.

ESA's Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO)

ESA's Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO) regularly arranges activities that give European students the opportunity to work with ESA in the pursuit of non-space applications based on the agency’s intellectual property portfolio.

The main mission of the TTPO is to facilitate the use of space technology and space systems for non-space applications and to demonstrate the benefit of the European space programme to European citizens. The office is responsible for defining the overall approach and strategy for the transfer of space technologies, including the incubation of start-up companies and their funding. For more information, go to http://www.esa.int/ttp

European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO)

For primary and secondary education, ESERO, which is under the management of Science Museum NEMO on behalf of ESA and NSO, develops and manages a large collection of lesson plans focused on current items and a multitude of subjects related to space flight.

ESERO organises special teacher conferences several times per year. On behalf of the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), ESERO has recently published a certified Physics, Life and Technology module about Earth observation and satellites for more able pupils in the senior classes of secondary school. ESERO also organises the CanSat competition on behalf of NSO, in which pupils make and launch their own soft-drink-can-sized satellite. For primary schools, there is the Mission X project. In 2021 organised by Space Expo in Noordwijk by order of NSO. Mission X is an international school project on the initiative of NASA, ESA and other space organisations from the world. Find out more on their website: https://www.spaceoffice.nl/en/education/

OneSpaceHub

The OneSpaceHub is a new consortium of stakeholders within the Netherlands working together with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland, RVO) to further exploit the potential of the space sector. The mission of OneSpaceHub is to better facilitate and stimulate the entrepreneurial journey from education and pre-incubation to start-up and scale-up. The project team led by NL Space Campus consists of Space Business Innovation Centre Noordwijk, University of Twente, PLNT Leiden Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Aerospace Innovation Hub @TU Delft, Hogeschool Inholland, Radboud University, and Leidse instrumentmakers School. The consortium will lay the foundation for a solid partnership where talents from provincial programmes and different educational levels flow towards a strong space-tech and data-driven ecosystem.

NL Space Campus – LDE Collaboration

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities(LDE) offer the best educational programmes within Europe and even the world. In space engineering, astronomy and space law, but also in other disciplines the universities offer space-related education programmes.

By combining these different disciplines, LDE aims to offer unique interdisciplinary space education for its students to prepare them for a career in the diverse space sector. From space engineer to space lawyer and from space researcher to space start-up and everything in between. To enrich these programmes the LDE universities are partnering with NL Space Campus for connecting to and involving of the space community.

NL Space Campus and Leiden-Delft-Erasmus universities have partnered up to work together to connect the students from the different universities and the space sector. Together they will work on interdisciplinary educational programmes for the LDE students and further stimulate research collaboration between the universities’ researchers and the space sector from start-up to institute, from downstream to upstream: in the Space for Science and Society programme.

Space for Science and Society
The space market is becoming more diverse and intertwined between upstream and downstream and changes rapidly in how space programmes and industry are run. The future working generation, the students of today, therefore do not only need educational programmes that can make them the best in their field, but also programmes that offer them a diverse and broad background and experience in working on actual challenges in the sector. These challenges can be technical but more often than not also require a business, law, scientific or societal view.

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities therefore will develop together with NL Space Campus interdisciplinary challenge-based educational programmes for their students: