Our Mission
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The SSPF was created for two reasons. Firstly, to serve the immediate need for an organisation to manage all local financial aspects of the International Space University’s (ISU) 2018 Space Studies Program (SSP) in the Netherlands.
After the completion of SSP18, the SSPF focused entirely on providing financial support in the longer term to ‘NL-connected’ participants for SSP and other short duration education programmes. |
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At the time of the existence of the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes (NIVR), there was a so-called NIVR-fund for the financial support of SSP participants, but this fund was discontinued when the NIVR was disbanded. Since then, it was difficult and only occasionally possible for interested parties in the Netherlands to obtain financial support for participation in this education programme. The SSPF aimed to again provide a structural solution for those interested in participating in SSP and other short duration space studies.
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Participation in SSP was not only important for the professional and personal development of the participants, but also connected them to the global alumni network of more than 4.800 space professionals, many of whom occupied key positions in institutional and private space organisations, in over a hundred countries. Combined with the international ISU network, SSP alumni formed an effective community of space professionals and leaders who initiated and facilitated international business development, collaboration, professional activities and career opportunities.
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The Netherlands Space Office (NSO), the space agency of the Dutch government (working as a partnership between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)), therefore also wholeheartedly supported SSP, according to the initiative taken by NSO to organise SSP18 in the Netherlands and also to establish SSPF.
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In this way SSP contributed to the further positioning, profiling and growth of the Dutch space sector.
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