Higher Education

The grant is provided with the aim of balancing and encouraging brain circulation through returning researcher grants.

The Estonian state attaches importance both to international researchers coming to Estonia to work and to the return of Estonian researchers who have gone abroad to work, to facilitate the application of knowledge and experience acquired abroad in Estonia. In addition to balancing emigration, we contribute to ensuring the future growth of researchers and engineers.

The members of the SEER Network will work together to produce state of art knowledge on STE(A)M education,
collect pedagogical resources for teachers and schools, and collaborate to build the foundations
of the SEER Roadmaps.

Emakumeak zientzian is a project promoted by POLYMAT (Basque Center for Macromolecular Design and Engineering) which was set up in 2017 in order to inspire science, technology and engineering vocations among girls and female adolescents, as well as to contributing to combat the gender stereotypes associated with research jobs. The project was launched on February 11 - the International Day of Women and Girls in Science – as a purely promotional activity. However, over time it has become a programme of STEAM activities aimed at different segments of the population and run by Polymat and a further 17 entities from the Basque scientific and technology ecosystem.

Currently the programme involves over 25 activities which are implemented annually. The majority of these activities are directly focused on inspiring science, technology and engineering vocations in girls and female adolescents and for them to aspire to careers in those areas, as well as to contributing to combatting gender stereotypes.

Emakumeak Zientzian’s accolades include:

• Gender perspective mention by STEAM EUSKADI.
• First place in the STEAM EUSKADI Awards.

The main objective of this initiative is to address the problem of gender inequality in the STEM field by introducing the gender perspective throughout the activities programme. In addition, the programme implements two specific STEAM education objectives:

• Inspire professional careers and vocations in STEM
• Improve students’ mathematic and scientific skills

The KVARK project was grown out of the Rocket69 science TV contest (see related page). The main reason for the creation was to broaden the public knowledge about science and scientific thinking. KVARK concentrates on three main actions:

1. Popularizing science, technology, and engineering
2. Rising the quality of the scientific, engineering, and technological education
3. Adding value to working in the science, technology, and engineering subject fields

The team of KVARK includes undergraduates and graduates from different STEM specialities.  KVARK’s objectives are to popularize scientific thinking and scientific approach in public by offering scientific content for different events, scientific entertainment in a form of science theatre, and by conducting clever workshops for both children and adults. KVARK also produces scientific and educational exhibits for museums and helps organisations to arrange projects that support science-based society, and environment.The objectives also include raising young people's (primary target group) interest in STEM education, professions, and careers in these fields. The objectives are measured by the projects supported; the number of events/workshops carried out. The indirect indication is evaluated based on the statistics of popularity of STEM specialties among the students’ enrolling universities, vocational schools, and hobby education.

The Cool Geography Class was developed by the EGEA-Tartu (European Geography Association for students and young geographers) in 2016. The aim of the project is to popularise the scientific geography and its career opportunities in Estonian schools. The development of the programme is based on the input of (geography) teachers and their needs for practical lessons.

Every year, the programme develops four new lesson topics that consist of theoretical and practical work. The lessons are conducted by the University of Tartu geography students (all together about 20 students). The lessons are provided based on the schools interest and for them and for the school. The lessons are completely free of charge.

In 2020, the lessons topics were:

• spatial planning
• smartphones as a tool for geography
• natural geography
• 3D modelling

The progress of the programme is measured in terms of the number the schools visited every year. The programme supports the countries aim to increase the number of applicatns in the universities in the STEM fields and with the goal of smart specialisation.

At the core of UCL's 50.50 Engineering Engagement Strategy is the aim to strengthen and diversify the engineering workforce, by encouraging young people from a wide range of backgrounds - especially young girls - to consider career pathways both ‘in’ and ‘from’ engineering. The initiative focuses on sustained, meaningful engagement, designing programmes that are based in engineering’s real social, ethical, environmental and humanitarian contexts. UCL wants young people to appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of engineering. The programme focuses on gender equality and inclusion, both for the course design and pupil participation, and promote diversity in every sense. Through the 50.50 Initiative, UCL has been able to create a step change in the representation of girls, women and ethnic minorities across all our STEM engagement programmes.

The 50.50 UCL Engineering Engagement Initiative focuses on six key priorities

1. Promoting gender equality and inclusion
2. Learning through experimental engineering
3. Inspiring through relatable engineering role models
4. Discovering STEM career pathways
5. Prioritising early intervention
6. Supporting teachers through professional development

The programme is linked to the UK government’s “Girls Education” and “Year of Engineering” programmes, as well as policies to get more girls into science and engineering careers and degrees.

As part of the initiative and partnership with EngineeringUK, Royal Academy of Engineering, Institute of Physics, Institute of Engineering & Technology and Institution of Mechanical Engineers, through the programme UCL co-developeds “Meet The Future You” (see background documents) based on real-life UCL engineers, with an emphasis on intersectionality and representation.

“The Education test” is a research-based test that aims to inform young people or pupils about educations and professions within STEM.  The test was created by psychologist Helge Brovold (NTNU) and takes 10-15 minutes to complete. Based on four different factors – personality, preferred learning method, personal and professional interests, the test presents occupations within STEM that might be suitable. The test result provides the pupil with information about his or her personality traits, how he or she learns best, and suggest some STEM occupations that fits their personality. After taking the test, the pupils may discuss the result with their parents or friends, and further evaluate different studies, careers and job opportunities. The main target group are pupils in junior high school and students in high school, but the test is also used in some universities to examine the students preferred learning methods and further to adjust the teaching methods.

NCSR (the Norwegian national STEM platform) has done focus groups to learn more about how young people make their choice of education. Its findings show that most youths have little knowledge about careers within STEM and what kind of occupations are eligible after studying STEM.
The education test aims to address this by providing the pupils with new ideas about what one can study and work with within STEM. In tandem to the test, the NCSR runs campaigns in social media throughout the year to inform the target audience about the test and the importance of educational choices.

The main goal of the programme is to make the pupils reflect on their interest, personality and their learning preferences in relation to STEM. Furthermore, the goal is to make the target audience aware of the different educations and jobs within STEM. The programme aims to:

• Inspire youths to choose STEM subjects and careers
• Provide the student with ideas about education choices and occupations within STEM
• Expand their horizon when it comes to their choice of education

These objectives are aligned with the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training’s STEM strategy – “Close to STEM” (see background documents).

ESTCube is a student satellite project and the first satellite in the world that attempted to use an electric solar wind sail (e-sail). The project aims to give students an opportunity to give their theoretical knowledge a practical output by building real-life satellites.

For every project, a team of engineers, mechanics, programmes and students is put together. With the team, a detailed plan and goals are set. For the ESTCube-1, the goal of the project was to successfully launch a student satellite. During the time in orbit, the satellite was actively used for taking images and downloading data, while students rapidly continued improving software for all subsystems. With this, the satellite was launched in 2013 and by 2014, the attitude determination and control system software reached its full functionality. In 2015, the batteries of the satellite got empty and the connection with the satellite ended.

Based on the good results from ESTCube-1, the activities continued with a new ESTCube-2 project in 2017. ESTCube-2 is a technology demonstration mission for deorbiting technology plasma break, the interplanetary propulsion system electric solar wind sail and advanced satellite subsystem solutions.

The ESTCube team is also participating in several bigger events and seminars. In addition to that, they also organize events that introduce the space technology and opportunities in the project. Every summer, the ESTCube Team is accepting summer traineeship members.

The main objective of the project is to promote space technology as a career path, by giving students an opportunity to gain practical knowledge about space technology and launch satellites that are made in Estonia. One of the goals is also to develop innovation in the field and put more emphasis in the field of research.

At the national level, the objective is to develop a research-based economy and use smart specialisation and launch more technology-based companies. Estonia faces a problem with the lack of engineers and technology developers in the near future. Therefore, it is important to bring more students to this career path.

Solaride is a project for students who want to contribute hands-on to solving our dependence on fossil fuels. To do so, the students are building a working solar car and taking it to the ultimate test run in Australia in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. The ultimate objective of Solaride is to promote engineering and its career options in Estonia.

The project gathers ambitious students from different fields, such as engineers, electronics, mechanics, software etc. from all over Estonia. The project has grown continuously into the size of an average company. Currently there are almost 70 team members. The team also has various prominent mentors from universities and companies to share their know-how with the students. Besides that, Solaride has strong support from cooperation with several Estonian universities and gives participating students the opportunity to gain practical knowledge and compete in an international competition. With this, the project promotes engineering and technology among the pupils and students.

The ultimate objective of Solaride is to promote engineering and its career options in Estonia. As a country Estonia faces a serious shortage of engineers and specialists, now and in the future. The overall aim of the project is to promote STEM career paths through hands-on experiences early on. The promotion of technology and engineering is therefore important to bring people to engineering and have the necessary workforce in the future. The programme also contributes to the development of innovation and science-based economy in Estonia. According to the analysis on the workforce needed in Estonia, in 10 to 15 years, 60% of the occupations are the kind of which we do not have today. Therefore, adapting with new and novel technology is critical.

The objective of the Future Ways-programme is to improve the level of education of young people and to facilitate the transition to higher education in these subject areas. This objective was set by the government, in line with related government strategies for STEM. To support the implementation of the objective, the consortium partners implement a wide range of activites, spanning multiple education levels. These include:

1.  Experience-focused workshops focusing on innovation
2.  Innovative and interactive roadshows that arouse students’ interest in the profession
3.  Company visits at leading organizations
4.  Summer camps with career orientation and skills development modules
5.  Skills development workshops for the cumulatively disadvantaged
6.  Organization of open days at the universities
7.  Training of trainers for staff members
8.  The preparation and methodological guidelines of curriculum integration

The members of the consortium (higher education instituions) took part directly in the activities. For example, iin the design of the high school quiz, where playful yet professional and thought-provoking questions were formulated designed to arouse interest in the topic and technical training. The consortium partners also participated directly in the compilation and implementation of the summer camp program. In the camp, they provided lectures on technical care / engineering t raining, the transport of the future, self-driving and electric vehicles and their effects. The lectures were designed to be understandable for the target age-group. Furthermore, during the one-week camp, students were continuously mentored and participated in teams looking for innovative solutions to future mobility and urban problems. In particular, the interactive presentations and the direct conversation with the students were well-received. Mentors encouraged students by passing on their personal experiences. Students were able to hear first-hand about the courses, new research findings, and opportunities.