The ESPI Space Policy Summer School 2025 convened under the theme: “Closing the Competitiveness and Resilience Gap: The Role of Space” and took place in the beautiful and historic city of Florence from 25-27 August 2025. The school was organised as an Executive Summer School in collaboration with the Florence School of Regulation’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute (EUI). The centre is a cutting-edge research centre focusing on major challenges facing Europe and the world, specialising in connecting academia with the public and private sector.
ESPI’s Inaugural Space Policy Summer School took place from 19 – 23 August 2024 in Alpbach, one of the most beautiful locations in the Austrian Alps. The summer school was organised in collaboration with the European Forum Alpbach (EFA), an annual platform that welcomes several thousand participants from around 100 nations, with a purpose to facilitate a space and place for the emergence of reflection and action.
ESPI’s seminar welcomed 45 participants from over 10 different nationalities, with many different backgrounds. In fact, less than 30% of participants were currently working in the space sector, with others coming from fields such as international relations, politics, and engineering, to name a few.
The programme consisted of five days of morning seminars which addressed four themes aligning with EFA’s overall theme, “Moment of Truth”: Security, Economy, Climate, and Policy. ESPI Director H. Ludwig Moeller was joined by four rotating co-chairs representing each theme including Gen. (Ret.) Michel Friedling, Sinéad O’Sullivan, Völker Liebig, and Angelina Bekasova, respectively.
Find below our Hall of Fame of previous speakers from our summer schools.
