The IAU and SKAO team up to fund new radio astronomy outreach

BY MATHIEU ISIDRO (SKAO)

In 2020, the International Astronomical Union started to provide all IAU national outreach representatives with a dedicated funding system to support the network on their outreach initiatives and increase the number of activities being conducted.

The funding scheme embodies the IAU’s mission of building international cooperation, by encouraging National Outreach Coordinators (NOCs) to form partnerships to present proposals addressing common challenges. The NOCs are national-level representatives for the IAU’s Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO), who act as a point of contact for astronomy outreach for a country or territory.

In this second year, the SKAO teamed up with the IAU, providing additional funding to sponsor projects on radio astronomy outreach bringing together the IAU’s network and the SKAO’s own communications and outreach network SKACON. The partnership aims at bridging a gap in existing astronomy outreach and encouraging the development of more radio astronomy content that educators can use, as well as fostering international collaborations and cross-fertilisation of ideas between the SKAO and the IAU’s outreach networks.

In this first year of the partnership, the SKAO has provided a commitment of €6,500, with three projects being awarded funding after a two-stage review process by outreach experts and astronomers to develop material that will be open source:

• From SKAO to the World, a collaboration between Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Colombia to promote radio astronomy literacy to Portuguese and Spanish speaking communities through the development of online science communication and education products, designed primarily to target high school students

• Observing the Milky Way at home: hands-on the radio waves, a collaboration between France, Portugal, Poland, Cameroon and Haiti to upgrade the web interface of a European network of small radio telescopes and increase access to it for learning communities

• Low-cost educational package for radio astronomy outreach in schools, a collaboration between India and Mauritius to put together a prototype package or “kit” with simple, low-cost educational resources along with do-it-yourself (DIY) ideas

The agreements are now being finalised for the projects to start and already, the SKAO and the OAO are looking at continuing the partnership for a second year running.