The 2025 edition of ESPI’s Essay Competition for students and young professionals concluded at the 19th ESPI Autumn Conference on 29 October 2025 with the award ceremony, featuring the two winning submissions in the programme, providing a platform for inputs from the next generation in the policy dialogue at the Conference. The award ceremony was moderated by Elizaveta Shashkova, ESPI Research Fellow seconded by CNES.
2025 Winners
The two winners of the ESPI Essay Competition 2025 are:
- Alexandra Ba-Tin, PhD candidate in Political Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, with her essay “Leveraging EU-Ukraine Space Cooperation to Counter Hybrid Threats in Space”
- Raphaël Diot, a master’s student in Housing and Ecological Transition Policies at the University Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, in France, and vice-president of the Toulouse Student Team of UNIVERSEH, the European Space University for Earth and Humanity, with his essay “Orbital Sovereignty: for Industrial and Strategic Autonomy for European Space Supply Chains”
The essays from Alexandra and Raphaël can be read here.
Three additional participants to the competition have also received special recognition from the jury:
- Mariel Laetitia Lee, a bachelor’s student in International Business Management at the Universitas Ciputra Surabaya, in Indonesia, for her essay: “It takes two to Tango: A Dual Financing Strategy for Europe’s Space Trajectory”.
- Francesco Camerotto, a young professional working as a policy advisor on innovation, digital and space policies, with a master’s degree in International Relations from LUISS University in Rome, Italy, for his essay: “The European use of Space for Diplomacy and Security”.
- Mac McGuire, PhD candidate in Astronautical Engineering at the Capitol Technology University near Washington, DC in the United States, for their letter from the future titled “Dispatch from 2040: How Europe Secured Its Place Among the Stars”.
About the ESPI Essay Competition
In July 2025, students and young professionals were invited to submit essays in the format of policy briefs related to the subject of the 19th ESPI Autumn Conference “Europe as a Space Power”. The participants could choose one of the six following topics:
- Human exploration capabilities;
- Supply chain autonomy;
- Space for diplomacy and security, the most chosen topic gathering over 40% of the contributions;
- Competitive advantage of the European way;
- Cultural representation;
- And for the first time a free topic, which was the second favourite of the participants who got to bring new ideas in the debate.
The Essay Competition is part of ESPI’s growing education portfolio. This year we had 61 contributions, more than double of last year’s, from all over the world with 35 different citizenships represented.
