The objective of Our Space Our Future was to change attitudes to careers in space science and attract a more diverse workforce for the future of the sector across Europe and beyond. By using a rigorous summary of the literature to inform our approach we felt our multiple interventions, and the use of a ‘whole school’ approach would be most effective. A secondary goal was to ensure rigorous evaluation was conducted for the project to capture learning about what works such that other actions for the future can be informed and improved. Many outreach programmes do not have the resource or skills to conduct this level of robust evaluation on a day-to-day basis, so this took the project beyond the state of the art.
We reached 4,741 students directly across the five countries with multiple interventions involving students and their influencers (parents, teachers and, community). In total 100,000+ students, teachers and wider communities encountered the resources of the project to improve their confidence, scientific literacy, interest and attitudes to STEM subjects. Additional targeted activity through social media (OSOF Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and partner social media) saw a further audience reach of over 750,000 and we built social media followings of between 800-2000 on our various OSOF channels.
The key messages delivered were around the relevance of the space industry in providing a better quality of life for all, and future benefits to our planet. Partners have attended national and international conferences, meetings, and events to present Our Space Out Future to our target audience and stakeholders. A legacy will be established from the learning of the impact evaluation and the change in practice within the delivery partners in each country.
