Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RESEARCH RIDE (RESEARCH RIDE @CLIMATE WEEK)
Teaser
Merging cutting edge environmental science into society is of crucial importance, as researchers worldwide commonly predict a potential threat to human mankind if no immediate actions are taken. However, the transfer of urgent environmental awareness and necessary measures to...
Summary
Merging cutting edge environmental science into society is of crucial importance, as researchers worldwide commonly predict a potential threat to human mankind if no immediate actions are taken. However, the transfer of urgent environmental awareness and necessary measures to sustainable cultural dimensions have been a great challenge as the dialogue between researchers, politics and the public is generally missing.
Previous attempts to overcome this challenge have primarily led to short-term materially motivated ideas. Contrary to these short-term practices our goal is the long-term and sustainable cultural awareness of the pressing environmental threats to preserve our planet and mankind. We aim to bridge the gap between cutting edge research developments and their understanding to the public. Celebrating the European Year of Cultural Heritage, we also anticipate to strengthen the crucial global cultural cooperation between nations to address common environmental tasks. Our overall motto FUTURE LIFE discusses questions of
environmental research in relation to cultural sciences and interhuman behaviour. Thereby FUTURE LIFE will provide an understanding to the public about complex cultural and environmental cause-and-consequence principles that will shape the future of our planet. Under the theme FUTURE LIFE, we propose the unique event RESEARCH RIDE, a research train that operates between Hamburg’s main metro stations, in order to provide awareness, visibility and public recognition of researchers and their latest research results. Direct interaction between researchers on the train and the public will be provided in an exciting atmosphere for young people between 14 and 25 years. In addition to strengthening the dialogue between experts and public, this unique event will considerably help to motivate and excite young people for potential research careers within the European Union. Moreover, the representative EU-corner will visualize the spirit that all European Researchers’ Nights in the European Union share simultaneously on September 28th and the following year.
Summary:
o Merging cutting edge environmental science into society;
o Contribute to the long-term and sustainable cultural awareness of the pressing environmental threats to preserve our planet and mankind;
o To bridge the gap between cutting edge research developments and their understanding to the public;
o To strengthen the crucial global cultural cooperation between nations to address common environmental tasks;
o To offer direct interaction between researchers on the train and the public will be provided in an exciting atmosphere for young people between 14 and 25 years;
o To motivate and excite young people for potential research careers within the European Union;
Work performed
Main tasks:
- Overall project management including the management of the contacts with the media, with subcontractors, research institutions and other partners;
- Ensuring of project overall consistency and coherence of messages throughout the different activities and locations;
- Keeping the overall budget
- Documentation
- Permanent flow of information (via E-Mail or phone, update to all consortium partners)
- Meetings with representatives of all cooperating bodies at the very start of all of the project’s important phases to define the overall strategy on a commonly agreed basis. Ongoing meetings were held, when required.
Results achieved:
The projects first period was a great success - the RESEARCH RIDE train was fully booked and there was more demand of participation than the train could offer space. The Science Stage hosted researchers with different topics and research fields offering the visitors easy access to fascinating academic progress.
Thanks to the pre-events during the Hamburg Climate Week, the European Researchers\' Night got special promotion by being announced on several occasions and through national media. In total 61 million contacts were made through the Hamburg Climate Week, including the European Researchers\' Night.
Final results
The impact of the project was to
o Increase in the awareness of the importance of research and innovation;
o More favourable general attitude towards its funding;
o Better understanding of the key benefits that research brings to society
o Reduction in the stereotypes about researchers;
o Increase of people taking up research careers
As the results of the evaluation questionnaire and personal feedback shows, the RESEARCH RIDE achieved best grades. The unique way of getting in touch with research while boarding a train showed the success of catching people outside their expectations and during every day life. Repeating this event might lead to an annual happening, since the demand of society for it is expected to increase in 2019. Also the interest of companies interested to fund this project in the future stands for its quality. Especially younger visitors were fascinated and might be likely to take up research careers. The EU-Corner offered the information about funding opportunities and could satisfy the curious visitors and guests.
Website & more info
More info: https://www.klimawoche.de/researchers_night/.