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Parallels Sessions III – 3.4 Poster Pitches II
May 3, 2023 @ 2:45 pm - 3:30 pm
Danielle Martine Farrugia, University of Malta
Towards a national strategy for public engagement with science – A case study for Malta
Small states present significant amounts of educational policies, however, policies on engaging various publics with science are relatively lacking or non-existent. The need for public engagement with science (PES) activities has increased in various countries such as Malta, and are potentially interesting to the ‘converted’ citizens, however, they tend to be sporadic. This tends to lead to resources being wasted, a lot of repetition, and lacunae in the areas being addressed. A pragmatic worldview was taken as a theoretical framework together with a mixed-method approach to analyse the PES public sphere in Malta. An investigation of the links between the organisers and the citizens attending science events was conducted to identify the relationships (especially related to power) between them. Stakeholder theory, Actor-network theory, and a mixture of top-down and bottom-up approaches guided this study’s approach to identifying and understanding the public in the Maltese PES public sphere.
Máire Caffrey, Teagasc – Agriculture & Food Development Authority, Ireland
How can organizations support Public Engagement? What do the scientists think?
To explore scientists’ perceptions of Public Engagement (PE) in Ireland, Agri-food researchers were surveyed to gather data on their participation in PE, their motivations, perceived barriers, future intentions, and identify the support needed. The data was analysed to establish any demographic influences (gender, career status….). The aim was to establish how organizations can support, encourage, and build public engagement.
These scientists have a high level of participation in PE, with high levels of largely altruistic motivations. However, they are unhappy with the current institutional support. They would like PE to be recognized in career progression processes. They need relevant training. Gender, career-status, age, and discipline all influence public engagement behaviours.
Research organizations must recognize and value public engagement in their career assessment processes, provide training, and supply support to encourage more participation and deeper engagement.
Andrea Troncoso, EUSEA
IMPETUS for citizen science: Innovative funding schemes and recognition
The poster will show the main components of IMPETUS and its accelerator calls and EU Citizen science awards, to show and motivate the attending participants to disseminate the calls and submit ideas and proposals in the coming calls. The accelerator calls for citizen science will comprise financial and training support, helping new and ongoing initiatives to ground their achievements deeper and to belong to a broader and stronger citizen science community.
Francesca Conti, Andrea Troncoso, Formicablu, Italy
Futures thinking and Open Schooling: new ways of engaging with science
The poster will depict the main results of the FEDORA project, an EU-funded project that looks into dissonances in the current way science is taught at schools and proposes pathways and models to integrate interdisciplinarity, new languages and futures thinking into a school that opens to the community.
Elisa Gärtner, Futurium, Germany
Idea Sprint – A productive interaction space between scientists and citizens
With the Idea Sprint the Berlin-based Futurium introduces a low-threshold interaction space between scientists and citizens. In the first pilot, the focus was on improving urban-rural mobility for young adults. Fifty school children at the age between 13 to 17 years translated their everyday experiences into creative prototypes. The experiences, demands and visions of the young target group provided an addition to the quantitative research results. The scientists used the input to elaborate a publication on the interlinkages of spatial planning and mobility offers, which is targeted at local level politics.
Georgia Mitrousia, Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom
Knowledge exchange and public engagement for agricultural research into practise
Rothamsted Research is a world-leading, non-profit research centre that focuses on strategic agricultural science to the benefit of farmers and society worldwide.
We actively engage with the farming industry to deliver knowledge, expertise and research outcomes. Though a diverse programme of events, discussion groups, publications and farm walks, we talk to farmers and those in the agricultural sector to learn about the challenges facing them, identify areas of shared interest, and maximise opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
We also communicate our science through public engagement activities which are varied and include public open events and displays at key public and stakeholder events, as well as hosting visits and engagement activities.
This poster summarises recent highlights of engagement activities from our Harpenden site with a focus on the arable sector of UK agriculture for maintaining global food security.