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How can we accelerate achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals through commercially led capacity-building partnerships with emerging spacefaring nations?

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #17 (Partnerships for the Goals) is essential for emerging spacefaring nations to access the benefits of space to help combat climate change impacts, support economic growth, and achieve their development goals. The commercial space sector, academia, and established spacefaring nations all have vital roles in making space more accessible, equitable, and sustainable.

In collaboration with space industry stakeholders, this project focuses on advancing the Partnership Motivation Index (PMI) – a novel framework developed to quantify and evaluate the motivation and readiness of space actors to engage in mutually beneficial partnerships. The PMI serves as a tool to facilitate matchmaking between commercial providers and emerging space nations.

Building on research presented at the 2024 International Astronautical Congress in Milan, this year’s project aims to develop the PMI to a minimum viable product (MVP) through data collection, stakeholder analysis, and model validation. Key activities include conducting surveys and interviews with industry and government stakeholders, refining the assumptions and indicators, and testing the model’s effectiveness.

We are inviting stakeholders from both commercial space organizations and emerging national space programs to contribute to our research surveys.

Your insights will help refine the PMI and support future sustainable space collaborations.

👉 Survey for commercial space companies

👉 Survey for emerging spacefaring nations

This research project is powered by the Interplanetary Undergraduate Research Scholars program.