Project Concept 

The ESAC Trainee Project has been developing and recruiting young student scientists and engineers (amongst others) for a number of years, and takes place at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), near Madrid. Each trainee participates in a project which contributes to various astronomical and planetary missions, such as Cluster, Gaia, Herschel, Integral, ISO, Mars Express, Rosetta, SMOS, Venus Express and XMM-Newton, plus the Science Archives and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) projects. The duration of each project is between a minimum of three months to a maximum of six months. To qualify to be an ESAC Trainee you must be a national of one of the ESA Member States or its cooperating states, and studying either your Bachelors degree, or Masters degree, at any university or institute (all are welcome).

ESAC trainees, as of now, have been from the following universities:

  • Austria:
 Technische Universität Wien.
  • Belgium:
 University of Ghent.
  • Czech Republic:
 University of Masaryk, Brno.
  • Denmark:
 University of Aarhus.
  • Estonia:
 University of Tartu.
  • Finland:
 University of Turku.
  • France:
 Chimie ParisTech; Ecole Centrale de Nantes; ENSEEIHT INP Toulouse; ENSEIRB-MATMECA, Bordeaux; Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, Toulouse; International Space University, Strasbourg; Observatoire de Paris; Universitè Catholique de Lille; Universitè de Paris.
  • Germany:
 Hasso-Plattner-Institute Potsdam; Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg; Technical University of Aachen; Technical University of Berlin; Technical University of Dresden; University of Applied Sciences Erfurt; University of Bonn; University of Erlangen-Nuremberg; University of Freiburg; University of Heidelberg; University of Osnabrück; University of Stuttgart; University of Tübingen.
  • Greece:
 National Technical University of Athens; Technical Educational Institute of Crete.
  • Ireland:
 Trinity College Dublin; University College Cork; University College Dublin.
  • Italy:
 Politecnico di Milano; Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro; Università degli Studi di Firenze; Università degli Studi di Lecce; Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca; Università degli Studi Roma Tre; Università degli Studi de Palermo; Università degli Studi de Pisa; Università degli Studi di Torino.
  • Norway:
 University of Oslo.
  • Poland:
 AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow; University of Technology, Wroclaw.
  • Portugal:
 University of Coimbra; University of Lisbon, University of Porto.
  • Romania:
 Institute of Space Science, Magurele-Ilfov; Techinical University of Cluj-Napoca.
  • Spain
 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid; Universidad de Alcalá; Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio; Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Universidad de Barcelona; Universidad de La Laguna; Universidad de Granada; Universidad de Malaga; Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña; Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca; Universidad del Pais Basco; Universidad de Sevilla; Universidad de Valencia; Universidad de Vigo; Universidad de Zaragoza.
  • Sweden:
 Institute of Technology, Linköping; Lulea University of Technology.
  • Switzerland:
 ETH Zurich; Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne
  • The Netherlands:
 Universiteit Utrecht.
  • United Kingdom:
 Cranfield University; King's College London; The Open University; University of Birmingham; University College London; University of Durham; University of Edinburgh; University of Leeds; University of Leicester; University of Manchester; University of Warwick.
  • USA:
 University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Michigan (trainees with Spanish nationality).

and in the past from the ESA Young Graduate Trainee Programme.

The project is supervised by tutors at ESAC. To get the projects started, a "First definition" and the "First steps and goals" are defined by the tutor as an initial guideline. The "First definition" is then refined and extended by the trainee to a real project definition after the first few weeks. The "First steps and goals" are transformed into a "Timeline" for the project by the trainee, supervised by the tutor. This strategy allows the trainee to start from the outset on a well-defined project, which is highly important for projects on short time-scales. It also allows the trainee to redefine and structure the project after a short period of introduction and adjustment. The concept of a realistic timeline also allows room for contingencies. After successful completion of the work, a self-assessment and review enable the trainee to get a first impression of the structure of project work, and to develop skills for the future regarding projects set up on a similar basis.

 

The ESAC Trainee Project is part of the ESA Student Placement scheme and is organised and funded by ESAC Human Resources and the Science Operations Department, in collaboration with the ESAC Faculty and the ESA Education Office.