How to apply

How to apply

The following steps describe what teams need to do to apply for the Drop Your Thesis programme:

• Form a team of two to four students who fulfil the eligibility criteria and have an interest in working in a team as an integral part of their university syllabus
• Identify and speak to a professor or academic supervisor who is willing to act as an endorsing professor for the team
• Define the project, discuss it, and perform a review of the scientific literature documenting similar research. Use this research to guide the project, and show how the proposed project expands the scientific domain
• Carefully read the conditions to apply, and familiarise yourself with the technical constraints, the ZARM Drop Tower, and Gravitower documentation (upon request), and other guidelines in the List of Documents.
• Write an experiment proposal following the experiment proposal template
• Ask your endorsing professor or academic supervisor to write a formal letter of endorsement in which they pledge their support to all the team members and the proposed project. More specifically, the endorsing professor should clearly state that they support the students application and that they accept responsibility for their Drop Your Thesis! project
• Apply for the programme by sending to dropyourthesis @ esa.int in one zip file the experiment proposal, the letter(s) of endorsement, and the consent forms individually signed by each team member

Instructions for the experiment proposal

The experiment proposal should focus on the scientific and technological objectives of the project, and clearly detail the intended scientific process and the justification of that process. Furthermore, the preliminary design of the experiment should be detailed within the proposal. The technical details with regards to the design should be detailed clearly, and any drawings or CAD models should be clearly labelled.

Prior to filling out the experiment proposal template, teams should carry out some research of the scientific literature to see whether work has already been done on the same or similar topic. Literature references are essential in order to demonstrate that teams are fully informed about the current status of research in this field.

The experiment proposal must also explain the relevance of microgravity in your project and - more particularly - the relevance of using the ZARM Drop Tower to achieve the project objectives.

The applicants must also explain in full detail how the proposed experiment is related to their syllabus or theses. Teams should indicate which academic projects they are involved in and how their proposed experiment would be relevant to these projects.

The text of the proposal should be comprehensible to scientists of various fields and engineers with a general scientific background.

Questions and contact details

If you have questions about the programme, please contact the Drop Your Thesis! team at: dropyourthesis @ esa.int. When sending an e-mail, please include a clear and concise subject title.

Please note that the information detailed above is subject to change without prior notice.