The Ecsite Space Group* annual meeting was organised this year at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in November 7. By bringing together representatives of museums, science centres ; the European Space Agency, ESA; the National Space Agency, UKSA ; and UK Airbus Space and Defence industry, this meeting was an amazing opportunity to brainstorm and imagine projects that could be developed and shared within the Ecsite network in 2015-2016.

The main goal was to select possible themes, which could be developed into new collaborative projects after the vibrant campaign, ‘Hook-up with Rosetta’ started in 2012. The Rosetta campaign, which involves about 30 science centres and museums from 12 ESA Member States, is the first project jointly developed by ESA and Ecsite.

During the meeting, the Space Group decided to select the topic “Space for life” to be developed at the pre-conference workshop of the Ecsite Annual Conference 2015 that will take place at Muse in Trento (Italy) in June 9 and 10. In particular, the pre-conference will focus on three themes that have been selected by the museums during the meeting: The International Space Station: Living and working in Space, proposed by Cité de l’espace, Toulouse, France ; Life on Earth and Beyond, proposed by City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia, Spain ; and Climate change: Monitoring the atmosphere and oceans from Space, proposed by Science Projects, London, United Kingdom.

In 2015, interested museums, Ecsite, and ESA will work towards the development of ready-to-use material on the basis of ideas raised during the workshops. The tools will be shared and broadly used to communicate about life and space to the public.

You can be part of the developments by attending the Space Group pre-conference workshop, open to all. The pre-programme of the Space Group pre-conference workshop is already online. Registrations open on February 25.

*Created in collaboration with ESA, the Space Group aims to facilitate collaboration among science centres, museums, research institutions, universities, national space agencies and industries all over Europe, in order to design collaborative projects to better promote European space activities to the general public. The Group is led by Marc Moutin, Director of Exhibitions at Cité de l’Espace, Ana Noronha, Executive Director of Ciência Viva, Lisbon, Portugal, and by Maria Menendez, Head of ESA Corporate Exhibitions and Events.