UNOOSA is pleased to announce the “United Nations / European Space Agency Fellowship Programme on the Large Diameter Centrifuge Hypergravity Experiment Series (HyperGES)” as part of the UNOOSA’s Access to Space for All initiative and in cooperation with ESA and ESTEC. The fellowship programme is aimed at providing opportunities for scientists and researchers with a team of students from Member States of the United Nations with particular attention to developing countries to conduct their own hypergravity experiment series at the LDC facility located at ESTEC in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The HyperGES fellowship programme is contributing to the promotion of space education and research in hypergravity around the world, particularly for the enhancement of relevant capacity-building activities in developing countries
Eligibility criteria
- Open to research teams from entities that are located in Member States of the United Nations with particular attention to developing countries. Each team should consist of one academic supervisor (Team Leader - Prof./PhD, not a student), and several Bachelor, Master and/or PhD students.
- The proposed experiment should be an integral part of the students’ syllabuses, that is, part of a Bachelor thesis, Master thesis, PhD thesis, or another form of research project associated with the applicants’ studies at their respective universities.
- The final number of team members who will participate in the experiment on site at the LDC facility depends strictly on the requirements of the experiment and is subject to approval by the Selection Board of the HyperGES Fellowship Programme. The Board reserves the right to change or limit the team size if considered necessary.
- Changes to the composition of the team are NOT allowed once the application has been submitted. If, for exceptional reasons, changes are absolutely necessary, they will be subject to the approval of the Selection Board. Priority will be given to teams that have not previously participated in an experiment at the LDC facility and/or research projects that have never been conducted at the LDC facility.
- The applying academic supervisors (Team Leader) will supervise the work of the students. This person must belong to the same entity as at least one of the students and will be expected to endorse the entire application (including the experiment proposal and team composition) by signing the application form, take care of development process of the team, and bear responsibility for the execution of the experiment.
- Team Members (Team Leader and each student) must be able to show that they have their respective institutions’ support through a Letter of Endorsement from their respective institutions. The complete application forms should be presented to their institutions. Team Members belonging to same institution may provide one Letter of Endorsement from that institution.
Selection criteria
- The scientific and/or technological value of the proposed experiment,
- The relevance of hypergravity in the proposed experiment,
- The relevance of the LDC utilisation in the proposed experiment,
- The general feasibility of the proposed experimental setup and procedure,
- The involvement of the proposed experiment in the students' syllabuses,
- The organisation realising the planned research project,
- The availability of financial resources to support development, preparation, transportation, and shipping experiment,
- The overall presentation of the experiment proposal
- The communication and dissemination plan
- Inclusiveness (e.g. in case of proposals with the same score, the shares of men and women in the teams will be compared. The proposal with higher participation of women will rank higher.)
- the link between the project and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The entire selection process will be performed in a single step, and the results will be announced by UNOOSA
Financial and technical support:
- Economy class round-trip air tickets, for up to four team members between their international airports of departure and Amsterdam (close to Noordwijk), the Netherlands. En-route expenses or any changes made to the air tickets must be the responsibility of the participants
- ESA/ESTEC will offer local hotel rooms and meals free of charge for up to four members of the selected research team in each cycle during their stay in Noordwijk, the Netherlands for the on-site integration and experiment series.
- ESA/ESTEC will be in charge of and operate the LDC facility itself and support the LDC experiments including their preparation and on-site integration. ESA/ESTEC will provide scientific and technical consulting, service and support to the selected team for smoothly completing the experiment cycle.
- The selected research team will bear the expenses for the experiment development, preparation, transportation and shipping as well as insurance of the experiment. Funding to cover these costs must be obtained by the selected team, through private means or through national or international institutions. Applicants and their respective entities are therefore strongly encouraged to find additional sources of sponsorship
The fully completed expression of interest document must be submitted via email to UNOOSA by 31 July 2022 23:59 CEST.
The fully completed application documents of the letter of endorsement from the head of the entity and HyperGES Mission Application must be submitted via email to UNOOSA by 18 November 2022 23:59 CET.
