European Astrobiology Campus Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Astrobiology Campus

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; Natural sciences; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The European Astrobiology Campus (EAC) was an initiative built for cooperative training and communication for students in astrobiology under Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership programme. Astrobiology is one of the newest and fastest growing branches of science. Although it has existed as an acknowledged scientific field for only around a decade, people have explored astrobiological questions such as the origin and evolution of life and the possibility of life on other celestial bodies since antiquity. Astrobiology is mainly centred around 3 issues:
• Where, when and how did life emerge and evolve on Earth?
• What are the conditions under which life can exist?
• Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe and, if so, how can it be detected and identified?

In Europe, a comprehensive astrobiology training programme has been missing. Astrobiology courses are offered only in few universities, but mostly only on elementary level. Also, the subject is generally not included in high school teaching. European Astrobiology Campus (EAC) was aimed for providing broad and comprehensive multidisciplinary education in astrobiology through courses at undergraduate to PhD level, and also to train lecturers. More than 250 students and also lecturers were trained in series of training schools over the project period.

The EAC project involved 12 partners from 9 EU countries and Iceland – University of Tartu, Estonia; University of Turku, Finland; University of Bordeaux, France; Stockholm University, Sweden; Utrecht University, The Netherlands; The Open University, UK; University of Vilnius, Lithuania; Iceland University, Iceland; University of Porto, Portugal; Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; Cap Sciences, France and Innovaxiom, France. It is of utmost importance that EAC cooperated not only within partners, but also with other European programmes as COST TD1308 ORIGINS and NASA Astrobiology Institute. This cooperation between institutions on an international level was necessary to provide training expertise that is not available within a single institution or even within a single country, and to allow students to meet colleagues from other institutions and thus identify future cooperation partners. It was also important that international courses were held at venues allowing practical field work, thus making it possible to combine theory with practice.

Furthermore, the EAC included non-academic partners (Cap Sciences and Innovaxiom), that supplied training in transferable skills like management, proposal writing, outreach and press work etc. Experience shows that the job profiles of former astrobiology students are very diverse ranging from academia over authorities to private enterprise. Thus, there was a need to educate students in many different basic and transversal skills. Also, activities of EAC were not only aimed at students and lecturers, but also engaged the general public.

The EAC completed a series of high-level courses about exciting interdisciplinary subjects covering the whole range of astrobiology, spanning from formation of habitable planets to the search for biosignatures on other celestial bodies. Also introductory courses for interested newcomers and a scientific summer camp for undergraduates were organized. Altogether 12 training schools/workshops were organized including scientific fieldwork at astrobiologically interesting sites in training school areas and also astronomical observations. These courses gained reputation among European students and also within the Astrobiology community in general. This comprehensive course programme was unique in the world and would have been impossible to be organized by a single institution. In addition to training schools in various subjects of astrobiology the Outreach training in transversal skills in cooperation with our non- academic partners was completed. During this training school students also designed astrobiology related board games that, together with other intellectual outputs aimed in science outreach and dissemination. In cooperation with International Astronomical Union (IAU) an International Symposium on Astronomy and Astrobiology Education – ISE2A was held in Utrecht The Netherlands discussing different aspects in teaching of this new field of science and to exchange experiences and to present novel course organisation teaching and assessment methods.

With respect to aims of EAC, significant developments were made. The EAC have created pan-European astrobiology community among the students and teachers involved with astrobiology and through participation in EAC activities new people are joined to the community and have started their own research in Astrobiology. European Astrobiology Campus in tight cooperation with COST Action ORIGINS and H2020-Europlanet projects has initiated preparation of a European Astrobiology Institute (EAI) as a cross-border organization joining researchers, teachers and students in the astrobiology in Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 354702,87 Eur

Project Coordinator

TARTU ULIKOOL & Country: EE

Project Partners

• TURUN YLIOPISTO
• INNOVAXIOM
• STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET
• UNIVERSITE DE BORDEAUX
• UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO
• VILNIAUS UNIVERSITETAS
• TALLINNA TEHNIKAULIKOOL