Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund - CAA / DfT funding now open to encourage young people into aviation careers

I have literally (not figuratively) been clicking the first link every day for months as I'm going to apply for this funding. My project, if funded, will be an issue of the CS4FN magazine (plus a new aviation portal on the CS4FN blog about flying and careers) about the computer science and human-computer interaction involved in designing, flying and tracking of aircraft and development of lower carbon options. Very excited, wish me luck!

Here's what I've posted to psci-com, the mailing list for science communicators.

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The Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport are keen to encourage young people to find out about careers in aviation so this fund is less about public engagement with the science of flight and more about careers outreach (but the previously funded projects obviously do include plenty of flight-related scicomm!).

Reach For The Sky Challenge Fund
https://stem.caa.co.uk/reach-for-the-sky-challenge-fund/
• open today until 12 September 2025
• Total pot is £750k, likely spread among 10+ projects

They are looking for outstanding outreach projects that can meet the following three objectives:

1. Inspire the next generation of aviation professionals, championing the opportunities available in the sector.  Applicants’ activities should focus on developing interest and engagement with the opportunities available in aviation, showing clear links to career pathways. This might also involve supporting someone in developing skills or gaining experience that could be useful for a career in aviation or aerospace, but should not replace formal education, i.e., delivery of statutory licences or educational qualifications.

2. Reach individuals who would not otherwise be aware of opportunities available within the aviation sector. Applicants should consider how their project might benefit under-represented groups (i.e. women and girls, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities or those from lower socio-economic backgrounds).

3. Have a broad impact by reaching and engaging multiple people. This might be achieved through some form of mass participation event, delivery through an education setting or youth group, or via virtual methods that can reach a mass audience.

Other useful links
Today's press release:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/750000-to-break-down-barriers-and-get-more-young-people-into-aviation-jobs

Reach for the Sky evaluation (26 September 2024, updated 17 Feb 2025)
Evaluating the success of the Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund and its ability to get young people into aviation careers.

Last year's press release (they upped the pot with additional funding, to £810k, and funded 16 projects (actually 18 if you click on the 'successful applicants button on the first page linked).

PDF listing the 2024 successful applicants with a summary of their projects.

The CAA's (quite fun, cute cartoons page on Careers in Aviation and Aerospace which includes everything (engineering, programming, logistics, ground crew, pilots and cabin crew).

Generation Aviation Group (Gov.UK)
"Generation Aviation is a multistream programme that helps build an aviation workforce fit for the future by raising the profile of aviation careers, removing barriers to access and attracting diverse and talented people to tackle new technologies, decarbonisation and other emerging trends."

Flight tracking pages
FlightRadar24 | ADS-B Exchange | Flight Aware (enter an airport name to see what's coming and going)

8 June 2021, 2pm, FREE - Open seminar on a QMUL / EPSRC project (Pambayesian) that blends computer science, Bayesian networks and medicine - with a bit of #scicomm

TL;DR: FREE seminar tomorrow from 14:00 BST on "intelligent medical decision support systems and the underlying technology" with a bit of chat at 4.30pm about outreach which may be of interest for science communicators / public engagement with science folk.

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Tomorrow there's an afternoon seminar to talk about, and to close, the EPSRC-funded Pambayesian project which has recently ended. The project looked at ways of helping doctors and patients make treatment decisions about particular health conditions (the examples under investigation included diabetes in pregnancy (aka gestational diabetes) and rhematoid arthritis) using computer science (specifically Bayesian Networks) to 'weigh' different pieces of ('risk') information. As you can see from the agenda below Bayesian Networks can be used in all sorts of health-decision-making scenarios.

I was involved in helping to produce an issue of our computing magazine for schools (CS4FN, Computer Science For Fun) which talked about Smart Health and included several articles on the Pambayesian project. I wrote a couple of articles myself. It was rather nice to be able to write about diabetes again, as in a previous life I was one of the Science Information Officers at Diabetes UK and wrote nothing but stuff about diabetes back then :-)

My boss Prof Paul Curzon will be speaking about outreach at 4.30pm and you can read the Pambayesian issue of CS4FN as a PDF here (free print copies are already on their way to subscribing UK schools, if you're a teacher please use the purple form here to sign up or invite your child's teacher to sign up). You can also explore the magazine's articles individually on the CS4FN blog.

 

PAMBAYESIAN Project final open seminar: 8 June 2021

When: Tuesday, June 8, 2021, 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Where: Zoom

The PAMBAYESIAN (PAtient Managed decision-support using Bayesian networks) is an EPSRC funded project to develop a new generation of intelligent medical decision support systems to help both patients suffering chronic conditions and clinicians treating them.

  Join on 8 June

The project ends on 30 June 2021 and there will be a final project open Seminar that will take place on Zoom on 8th of June 2021 from 14:00 to 17:00. 

You can join the seminar using the following link: https://qmul-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/85147764196

The event will include presentations on the development of intelligent medical decision support systems and the underlying technology. There will be time for discussion of both the technical issues and future exploitation.

Agenda

2.00-2.10: Prof Norman Fenton: Introduction and overview of the PAMBAYESIAN project

2.10-2.20 Dr William Marsh: Overview of the Bayesian Network (BN) clinical models

2.20 – 3.10 PAMBAYESIAN rheumatoid arthritis application

2.20-2.30 Dr Amy MacBrayne: The clinical perspective

2.30-2.40 Dr Hamit Soyel: User interaction

2.40 –2.50 Ali Fahmi: The BN model

2.50- 3.00 Chris Robson (Living With): Integrating the model into a commercial platform

3.00-3.10 Discussion

3.20- 3.50 PAMBAYESIAN diabetes in pregnancy application

3.20-3.30 Prof Graham Hitman: The clinical perspective

3.30-3.40 Mariana Raniere Neves: The BN model

3.40-3.50 Discussion

3.50 – 4.10 Extensions of PAMBAYESIAN

3.50-4.00 Dr Scott McLachlan: The caremap approach

4.00-4.10 Morghan Hartmann: PAMBAYESIAN additional cases studies - Multiple Sclerosis and Pelvic Floor Syndrome

4.10-4.30 PAMBAYESIAN BN technology

4.10-4.20 Dr Maggie Wang: The dynamic BN modelling challenge

4.20-4.30 Dr Eugene Dementiev: The BN deployment challenge

4.30-4.40 Prof Paul Curzon: PAMBAYESIAN impact and outreach

4.40-5.00 Discussion

More details on PAMBAYESIAN: https://pambayesian.org/