OU awarded funding by ESA to investigate socioeconomic benefits exploration space missions

Dr Manish Patel, Senior Lecturer in The Open University (OU) Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics and Dr Leslie Budd, Reader in Social Enterprise in the OU's Faculty of Business and Law, have been awarded a grant of €350,000 by the European Space Agency (ESA) for their cross-faculty collaborative study titled the ‘Benefits of the European Space Agency Exploration Roadmap in Socioeconomics’ (BEERS).  

The project investigates and evaluates the socioeconomic benefits of ESA exploration space missions with respect to economic competitiveness and growth, new means to address global challenges/sustainable development goals and inspiration. This grant in open competition against many of the key European players in economic analysis, and represents a significant achievement for The Open University.  

The project arose through collaboration between the Space Strategic Research Area and the Citizenship and Governance Strategic Research Area, and marks the beginning of a new area of research for the OU combining two areas of core OU expertise (space exploration and economic analysis). 

The research team pulls together expertise from many different areas of the university - as well as Manish and Leslie, the study includes Dr Victoria Pearson, Senior Lecturer, 
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, Dr Andrew Trigg, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Davide Villiani, Research Student in Facilty of Business and Law, and Dr Sian Joel-Edgar, Staff Tutor in Computing and Communications Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics. In February, Dr Steve Walker, Staff Tutor, Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics will join the team.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash