Europlanet Public Engagement Funding Scheme
Europlanet awards grants for projects to engage the public with planetary science. Through the funding scheme, Europlanet aims to encourage new ways of sharing planetary science with different kinds of audiences across Europe (and beyond) to create socially impactful initiatives that combine research, learning, innovation and social development.
The judging panel will be looking for projects that show innovative approaches to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM), societal impact, a commitment to diversity and widening participation, and a potential for sustainability of the project in the medium and long term.
The Europlanet Public Engagement Funding Scheme is designed as a testbed, providing seed-funding for pilot studies that can be complemented with additional funding during the project implementation. Europlanet will encourage projects to share experiences and good practices with the wider outreach community e.g. via the network of Europlanet Regional Hubs, the Europlanet website and newsletters, and sessions at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC). Evaluation reports will be made accessible online.
When to Apply for Funding
The call for applications for the next round of the Europlanet Public Engagement Funding Scheme Is currently closed.
The next call will open in spring 2024.
How to Apply for Funding:
- Fill in the online form. You can include additional information (4 pages maximum), such as illustrations or mock-ups, to help the Jury understand what your project will look like.
Selection Criteria:
By setting up the funding scheme, Europlanet aims to:
- Motivate and enable European planetary scientists to participate in and initiate outreach and education activities, and to find innovative ways of engaging and involving the public in planetary research and exploration.
- Highlight planetary science and related fields as an attractive and attainable potential career for young people.
- Encourage planetary scientists and engineers to build partnerships within communities and demonstrate the relevance of their research to different groups within society.
- Create testbeds for outreach and education projects, whose results can be sustained, scaled and adapted to other places and situations inside or outside Europe.
The judging panel is therefore looking to support outreach and education projects that:
- Include direct interaction between planetary science researchers and engineers and different stakeholder groups (e.g. educators, communicators, policy makers, local communities or entrepreneurs).
- Widen participation in planetary science by under-represented groups.
- Promote equality, diversity, inclusiveness and accessibility.
- Promote innovation in tools or resources for communication and/or education.
- Build links with additional partners, networks and fields of study
- Demonstrate sustainability and potential legacy.
- Connect to Goals and Targets for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- Show a potential scalability for wide European and/or international participation.
- Demonstrate that the project team has the appropriate range of skills to carry out the project successfully. Plans should be realistic and clearly linked to the desired objectives.
Find Out More:
Europlanet Funding Scheme FAQs
Europlanet Funding Scheme Case Studies
Contact: If you have any questions, please contact Federica Duras, the Chair of the Europlanet Outreach Jury (federica.duras<at>inaf.it).
2023 Funded Projects
A Blink of a Star: An Occultation Citizen Science Project
Sociedad Astronómica Granadina
Award: 4,700 Euros
The study of occultations of stars by Solar System bodies provides relevant data about those bodies (sizes, atmosphere, moons, rings…) and the occulted stars. Therefore it is of great interest to observe those events. However, those occultations can only be observed in certain regions of the Earth: those which are within the shadow path of the occultation.
On Dec 12th, 2023, Asteroid (319) Leona will occult Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), a very bright star in Orion. In this case the great interest is to study the star Betelgeuse with an unprecedented spatial resolution given that the angular diameter of Betelgeuse is very similar to that of Leona. This occultation will be easily visible with the naked eye on various places on Earth, a phenomenon that is not common and offers a great opportunity for outreach about these phenomenons and the science involving their study. Particularly, as it will be visible in the north of Andalusia, near to the headquarters of the Sociedad Astronómica Granadina (SAG), SAG requested support from Europlanet for a citizen science project to obtain numerous different chords using regular cameras and lenses to complement the professional observations of the event and an outreach campaign in order to engage the public with the science behind those phenomenons.
Find out more about projects funded in past rounds.
