Workshops for Global Collaboration
Barbara Cavalazzi (University of Bologna, Italy) reviews a series of workshops organised by Europlanet in Africa and South America.
Read article in the fully formatted PDF of the Europlanet Magazine.
In December 2021, Europlanet published its strategic plan for development of global collaboration and integration in planetary sciences. The plan set out a vision, objectives and actions to increase engagement with African, North and South American and Asian countries in planetary research and education, and support growth in the planetary science community worldwide.
The long-term goals at the root of this strategy are to create the conditions for new scientific partnerships between EU and non- EU countries. Enhancing planetary science links between EU and non- EU countries will underpin growth in the scientific community and the free circulation of idea.
However, economic, political and social commitments within global partnerships will only succeed through sustainable development, equality in the allocation of available resources and the building of trust on both sides. While there are many people in Africa and South America working on space research, often in collaboration with European or US partners, there may not be the governmental funding or institutional support to develop a national planetary community, and individuals may feel isolated. Europlanet was founded twenty years ago to overcome fragmentation in the European planetary community, and we have experiences and lessons learned in consolidating our network that may be relevant for fragmented planetary communities in other parts of the world.
At the heart of the implementation of this strategy has been the organisation of the Europlanet Workshop Series at key locations in Africa and South America. Four workshops were originally planned and six have been held over the past three years, with European Commission funding through the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) project.
The main objective for the workshops has been to bring together people from the same country, who are working on similar space topics, for three or four days to get to know each other so that they can start to build local networks. The format and approach has been roughly the same for all six workshops: around 25 participants gather in person for lectures and training, but with a programme that leaves plenty of space for discussions in round-table sessions and over lunch, dinner or aperitifs. While hybrid participation has been possible for most of the events, widening the access to training for participants from other countries, the funding has been focused on supporting motivated individuals from the host country to attend in person. The number of trainers has also been kept to a minimum to help build the group spirit and enable participants to feel comfortable asking questions of instructors that they have been able to get to know. We also encouraged participants to create a WhatsApp group to share information about activities and other opportunities after the event.
While each workshop was successful, we learned things that we were able to carry over and apply to the next event. I attended all but one of the events in person, but worked with a local organising committee who helped define the topic of the workshop, oversaw logistics and invited local experts to give the lectures or lead seminars.
The first workshop took place in Palapye at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), which is a partner in Europlanet’s Transnational Access programme and leads field trips to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. The workshop ran from 15-19 November 2021, which was still during the Covid-19 pandemic. This meant that some of the trainers needed to participate remotely due to ongoing travel restrictions and health concerns. However, we managed to attract very motivated participants, with 25 in-person attendees from Botswana, and another 15 or so people following online from other African countries and around the world. The workshop, on the topic of ‘Satellites for Space Science and Technology in Africa’, aimed to support scientists and engineers at all career stages working to design satellite missions tackling scientific themes and specific target objects. The participants included Master’s students, PhD candidates, postdocs and professionals working in research institutes and governmental organisations.
The Italian Cultural Institute in Addis Ababa hosted a second workshop from 13-16 December 2022. Although a Peace Accord was signed in November 2022, bringing an official end to the two-year civil war in Ethiopia, hostilities continued in some areas of the country. Mekelle University, a partner in the Europlanet project, is located in Tigray where the worst of the conflict took place, and things remain very difficult in the region. Addis Ababa was relatively safe, but the workshop was planned as in person only due to difficulties with stable Internet connections. The workshop, on the topic of ‘Applications of Earth Observation Satellite Data’, brought together 38 space technology specialists, scientists and students to discuss topics in this rapidly developing field. The attendees comprised 24 participants from Addis Ababa, as well as 12 from wider Ethiopia, including from Semera, Wollo and Willowy Universities. A hands-on laboratory session called ‘Light Up the Constellation’, led by INAF (the Italian Institute for Astrophysics), was also organised for 65 school students in the preceding days.
The third workshop, on the topic of ‘Rocks from Space and Planetary Defence’ took place in hybrid format in Casablanca, Morocco, from 25- 28 April 2023. Many meteorites are found in northwest Africa, so this is a hot topic and of increasing cultural importance for the region. As the topic is broad, requiring a lot of different expertise, we had a larger number of instructors, as well as 31 in-person participants over the week. This was the largest group, and also had many people from around the world following online, so it was probably the most difficult workshop to build the close connection between the participants.
The last scheduled workshop, ‘Connecting Earth with other Planets’, was the first Europlanet workshop to take place in Latin America. It was organised by the University of Buenos Aires and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and had 30 in-person participants plus up to 60 people joining online from Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, plus others from Africa and Europe. At the end of the session, we had a half-day round-table, where participants from each country were able to present and discuss their priorities and needs for collaboration.
At the end of 2023, we had completed our four scheduled workshops but we had a small amount of budget left. The Italian Cultural Institute contacted me and suggested running another session in Addis Ababa and offered to provide some additional funds. We were, therefore, able to run an additional one-day session exploring the field of astrobiology, for which we had 65 registered participants. We were also able to organise a further two-day workshop in Bolivia with 25 in person participants.
All the workshops were very different and we were able to adapt the format to fit in with the needs of our participants and be as inclusive as possible. The workshops in Botswana and Ethiopia were held in English, but the events in Morocco and Latin America were held in French and Spanish respectively. In Ethiopia, some of the female participants were accompanied by their parents as chaperones. In Morocco, where we had almost an even gender balance of male and female participants, many of the women brought their babies and children to workshop sessions. Having female organisers and young, female experts acting as instructors was also a key message for the workshops to highlight that there are opportunities for women in this field.
Going forward, it is very important that Europlanet is able to follow up on these workshops and continue to organise events around the world. Particularly in Africa, people are quite cynical in that they see many things started and not followed up. The approach of the workshop series of building groups of 25 people has proved successful, but the momentum needs to be maintained. Not only will this help grow and sustain networks, it will send a clear message about the importance Europlanet places on global collaboration and cooperation in the community.
The Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) Project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.
