SPACE4GEO GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOSTED DG DEFIS, EU Space Academy and ECMWF!

The SPACE4GEO General Assembly held on 21st October 2024 had the honour to host Maria Vittoria D’Inzeo from DG DEFIS, Kati Tahvonen from the EU Space Academy and William Becker from ECMWF to discuss skills development opportunities in Europe and share ideas for collaboration through the SPACE4GEO Network. In particular, Maria Vittoria D’Inzeo outlined the EU’s approach to addressing skills shortages in the space sector, emphasizing a policy perspective on innovation, defence and emerging initiatives. Looking forward, the EU anticipates further challenges in the skills gap, driven by an aging workforce and technological demands. The new EU Commission is expected to develop a “Union of Skills” and to focus on initiatives supporting lifelong learning, skills portability and vocational training reforms, critical for addressing labour shortages and improving competitiveness across Europe.

Kati Tahvonen from EUSPA presented the EU Space Academy Learning Platform, its current offerings and future expansion ideas. In terms of outreach and networking, EUSPA aims to create a network of educational partners to promote the platform towards potential learners. Partners’ institutions could also gain visibility through a dedicated partners page and newsletters, fostering closer ties between education and space industry needs. In this framework SPACE4GEO can offer support to awareness raising and promotional activities as well as facilitate the engagement of educational partners and experts in the development of the training offer of the EU Space Academy, also providing ideas for contents to be addressed.

William Becker, a training specialist from ECMWF (European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts), introduced the organization and its training initiatives, which include in-person training and online training. A high priority area addressed in recent training offer is Machine Learning, which is expected to scale-up in the near future. In this perspective, ECMWF has an open Call for Tender for companies to develop ML e-learning resources for the Destination Earth program. ECMWF also collaborates with WMO, EUMETNET, and EUMETSAT on joint training initiatives, extending the reach of their expertise in weather forecasting and climate science. SPACE4GEP members are invited to connect with ECMWF regarding training collaborations. Important to highlight that many training resources developed by ECMWF are open source and freely accessible. ECMWF is open to collaboration in this respect, particularly for the possibility to reuse and/or adapt some of their open training resources within training initiatives to be developed within SPACE4GEO.

As a conclusion of the lively exchange of questions and answers which followed the presentations by the guest speakers, it was emphasized the importance of ongoing collaboration and requested that the guests regularly share relevant information with the SPACE4GEO Partnership, which consists of various interconnected organizations. The SPACE4GEO Coordinator highlighted the Partnership’s willingness to support dissemination efforts related to training initiatives for skills development realized by the EU Space Academy and ECMWF, at the same time reminding that SPACE4GO can offer access to a network of experts for assistance in developing training content and encouraging the guests to share any relevant tenders with the Partnership in order to facilitate prompt action and collaboration.