Impact of Europlanet and its Research Infrastructure

Since 2005, Europlanet has recieved 28 million Euros of funding from the European Union to support the planetary science community and to build a research infrastructure to underpin exploration of our Solar System and those around other stars. Europlanet’s overarching aims are to:

• Strengthen Europe’s position at the forefront of planetary exploration.
• Widen the user base for the Europlanet research infrastructure and draw in new partners from underrepresented groups and industry.
• Train the next generation of RI leaders and users.

Europlanet has an active programme to evaluate the effectiveness of its services for its user community and wider society, led by an independent evaluation expert, Jen DeWitt.

Europlanet’s evaluation framework:

• Helps assess the effectiveness of the Europlanet Research Infrastructure (RI) for its user community
• Contains aims, objectives, and how they will be measured (metrics/KPIs, impact indicators)
• Is underpinned by a logic model
• Depicts of how project/infrastructure works
• Links outcomes with project activities and underlying assumptions
• Is developed collaboratively
• Evolves and changes over the course of a project
• Consists of inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts.

Case Studies

Summary of Europlanet 2024 RI Evaluation (September 2022)