ESA’s Ariadna initiative

Ariadna is mechanism for collaborative joint research projects between ESA's internal research think tank, the Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) and academia. It was established in 2004 as an initiative to establish closer links with the European academic community in order to advance space technology research.

Ariadna projects are typically exploratory, high risk, time- and resource-limited research studies outside of ESA’s programmatic horizon. Research fields are typically not yet covered by ESA activities, and have not previously been thoroughly explored in a space context.

In the conduct of Ariadna projects, researchers from the ACT will form with researchers from universities an ad-hoc virtual team performing research together. The target communities are university research groups and departments (including their non-profit entities providing contractual and administrative support).