Our team and mission

The STEM Education and Outreach Unit takes care of the ESA STEM Learning and Inspiration Programme targeting 3-18 years-old youngsters, directly or through their teachers and educators. This programme is structured along two synergetic blocks, as follows:

• Learn with Space, initiatives to support teachers and educators from formal and non-formal education venues, starting from early-ages up to upper secondary age-groups, such as professional teacher and educator training, didactics resources, interdisciplinary school projects, thematic workshops and hackathons, inspirational activities and camps and an international community of practice. Such activities are implemented at national level through the ESA ESERO project (www.esa.int/esero), a network of dedicated national offices and consortia of partners established by ESA in its Member and Associate States.

• Let Space Inspire You, inspirational events, role modelling, career awareness initiatives, and access to space experts for youth and their families to be attracted to space and STEM, and understand their importance for society and economy. In doing so, help to break diversity barriers, boost accessibility, and promote sustainability for a better future.

You are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

As a Young Graduate Trainee, you will contribute to the activities of the STEM Learning and Inspiration programme (early-age and school-age education), in particular in the framework of the Learn with Space activity set introduced above.

Your traineeship will in particular concentrate on providing support to the management and coordination of the ESA European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO) project. ESERO is a wide network of offices in ESA’s Member and Associate States, serving the respective primary and secondary education communities through national teacher and educator training, didactic resources and projects, educational inspirational events and activities, and role modelling/career awareness activities. Each national ESERO is regulated by an ESA contract and counts on large national consortium of collaborating partners, each bringing their expertise to the project. The coordination of the network of ESERO offices is one of the main tasks for the ESA Education Office, and you will contribute to such coordination by (not limited to):

• Contributing to provide feedback to ESERO national operators on the suitability of the activities they propose and implement, both from the point of view of their scientific/technical accuracy and of their educational/didactics adequacy, and helping to provide feedback on the ESERO progress reports.
• Supporting the organization of progress meetings with ESERO teams across Europe and related stakeholders/national partners, as well as providing support to the organization of bi-annual workshops with all ESERO managers.
• Supporting daily interactions with the ESERO offices, and facilitating direct interaction between ESA professionals and ESEROs, national schools, teachers, etc, as required.
• Supporting the coordination and/or liaise with ESA/ESERO Network Activities, and with ESA scientific and technical experts for fact and information finding and filtering.
• Supporting the organization of ESERO/ESA led education events (e.g., teacher conferences, In-Flight calls with astronauts on the ISS, etc.).
• Supporting the maintenance of ESERO classroom resources archive/inventory.
• Supporting the Education Office reporting, outreach and promotion activities.

Technical competencies

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation

Operational Efficiency

Fostering Cooperation

Relationship Management

Continuous Improvement

Forward Thinking

Education

You should have just completed, or be in the final year of your Master’ s degree in a scientific or technical discipline.

Additional requirements

You should have good interpersonal and communication skills and should be able to work in a multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team.

Specific competence/additional studies/qualifications and/or experience in one of the following disciplines shall be considered as assets: school-level STEM education (e.g teaching qualification); institutional relations; space-related knowledge.

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another Member State language would be an asset.

During the interview motivation and overall professional perspective/career goals will also be explored.