Per aspera ad astra simul (Through difficulties to the stars together) Erasmus Project

Project Title

Per aspera ad astra simul (Through difficulties to the stars together)

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Natural sciences; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Research and innovation

Project Summary

This unique project contributed to enhancement of careers of young astronomers and to education of general publics in astronomy. Astronomy requires international interaction and this is usually the first step to future career prospects of early career researchers. However, there are not many targeted schemes focusing on exchanges between observatories like IAC Roque de Los Muchachos at La Palma. With our project, we filled this gap. We enabled mobility and expertise exchange for 21 young researchers, almost twice as much than originally planned 14. Several of the young astronomers obtained consequently top jobs in astronomy such as an ESO PhD studentship or ESA postdocotoral fellowship or even a tenure track professorship position. We tried to be as transparent as possible and researchers participating in the mobility scheme were sharing their unique experiences with public via our blog page http://erasmus.asu.cas.cz/erasmus2017/blog.html . We also presented our research in the form of a book written by expert authors from partner institutes, disseminating our project work to many new readers. Furthermore, we also disseminated our ideas through two summer schools which were organized for students from outside of the project. One took place at Stara Lesna, Slovakia in 2019 and the other was fully virtual due to pandemics of COVID-19 and it was organized from Brno, Czech Republic. Our participants gave more than 32 talks and lectures and we were also able to present a cycle of lectures on “Life in the Universe” for the general public which had more than 100000 views on Youtube channel. We pursued a unique pilot project with pre-schooler kids when we worked with the local kindergarten in Ondrejov, Czech Republic on the project “Exoplanets in the Universe”. Kids aged 5-6 were present for video projection of pictures of the Universe on the roof of the Perek telescope dome and then they worked with their teachers on the presentation of their understanding of exoplanets. The results were presented to teachers and parents in the community session in the Astronomical Institute in Ondrejov in the library. Kids works were also left for a small exhibition. We recognize that every young kid has a huge potential and growth later in young peoples lives comes through initial stimuli which we hoped to achieve. Even if only one kid from the present group would go to study natural sciences, our goal was achieved.
Astronomical research is about collaboration on an international scene. It is about high tech instruments and it unveils the greatest mysteries of the Universe we are living in. Our project contributed to scientific unveiling of these mysteries and also helped to boost careers of the young researchers (even perhaps the potential of the smallest ones). All our results are included in the Dissemination Platform and listed in the detailed report attached.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 287030,22 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASTRONOMICKY USTAV AV CR & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Masarykova univerzita
• UNIVERZITA KOMENSKEHO V BRATISLAVE
• INSTITUTO DE ASTROFISICA DE CANARIAS
• ASTRONOMICAL INSTITUTE OF THE SLOVAK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES