Supporting New Science Shops
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PERARES Deliverable D4.2 Supporting new Science Shops Report describing the implementation phase of the local Public Engagement with Research action plans, mentoring and advisory activities, and Summer Schools Dr. Henk A.J. Mulder (editor) Science Shop, University of Groningen May 2014 This publication and the work described in it are part of the project Public Engagement with Research and Research Engagement with Society – PERARES which received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 244264 Contact details for editor: Dr. Henk A.J. Mulder, Science Shop, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The chapters in this report are written by many colleagues from the ten new Science Shop initiatives. Many thanks go to the mentors and Summer School teachers. Disclaimer: PERARES is an FP7 project funded by the European Commission. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. 2 Executive Summary Science Shops are units that perform or broker research with and for Civil Society Organisations, in a demand driven way. They are often, but now always, based at universities. This allows them to use students to do the research under faculty supervision. Thus, the research is part of the core-business of the university (research driven learning and teaching), and the public engagement is added-in to these activities, and not added-on. This makes Science Shops an affordable tool for science-society engagement and co- creation of new knowledge. Stand-alone Science Shops use per project funding to achieve the same objectives. In the period 2010-2014, the PERARES-project intensively supported new Science Shop initiatives in ten different regions, through mentoring. PERARES also supported various other initiatives through annual Summer Schools, incidental lectures, and on-line resources. To start a new Science Shop, the following approach was taken: 1. A staff member is appointed to do a feasibility study and make a business plan, dealing with following elements and strengths/weaknesses of various options: a. The potential demand (topics, numbers) for research from CSOs. b. The potential resource of student-researchers (disciplines, levels, numbers) c. Options for organisational placement of the Science Shop, staffing, work- flows and responsibilities d. Potential sources for continued funding 2. An advisory board (including both research and CSO representatives) is set up 3. A temporary structure is set up to solicit and respond to research questions 4. Pilot projects are done Based on all the above experiences, which were scheduled for the first half of the project, in the second half, a final structure was proposed, publicity made and funding for that was sought, while (pilot) projects continued. The approach led to the following results: The European University Cyprus now has its Science Shop, integrated in university. The Institute of Baltic Studies, a (non-university) NGO research organisation has done projects co-operation with various universities through its Science Shop called ‘Teadusturg’ and now starts co-operation with Tartu university for continuity. In France, the association ADReCA has its Echop’a Sciences established, though working with university structures in Grenoble is still tough. Also in France, Université de Lyon has established its Boutique des Sciences, with a 3-year funding secured from a national program. The Technical University of Crete (Greece) has established its own Science Shop, Epilyon. In Ireland, the Dublin Institute of Technology has extended its project “Students Learning with Communities” to include Science Shop projects. In Israel, the Heschel Centre, an NGO, catalysed networking among universities and other stakeholders. 3 In Italy, the University of Sardegna has established its Science Shop as an association called “IntHum”. In Norway, the University of Stavanger has established its Science Shop, the Forskningstorget, which works with two of its schools now The University of Cambridge (UK) has further established its Science Shop, the Community Knowledge Exchange. The 5 Summer Schools that were organized attracted about 130 participants from approximately 25 countries. Mentors in Hungary and Romania supported new Science Shops actively, and quite a number of other presentations and workshops, and publications were made. We conclude that: By doing research projects with and for civil society in the curriculum - through Science Shops and similar intermediaries - many universities throughout Europe can advance public engagement in an affordable and mutually beneficial way. Supporting these universities with seed funding and mentoring/training by European experts is an efficient tool to set-up new Science Shops. Setting-up Science Shops without the active co-operation of universities is quite complicated. The Summer Schools are a good way to reach out to more interested actors. 4 Table of Content 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7 2. Overall results – Summary ................................................................................................ 11 2.1 New Science Shop initiatives ...................................................................................... 11 2.2 Other mentoring support ............................................................................................. 16 2.3 Main Conclusions and Lessons Learned .................................................................... 17 3. The regional Science Shop establishments ...................................................................... 19 3.1 Cyprus: European University Cyprus (EUC) ............................................................... 19 3.2 Estonia: Institute of Baltic Studies ............................................................................... 26 3.3 France: ADReCA (Grenoble) ...................................................................................... 36 3.4 France: Université de Lyon ......................................................................................... 44 3.5 Greece: Technical University of Crete (TUC) .............................................................. 52 3.6 Ireland: Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) ............................................................... 61 3.7 Israel: The Heschel Centre for Sustainability .............................................................. 68 3.8 Italy: University of Sassari ........................................................................................... 75 3.9 Norway: University of Stavanger (UiS) ........................................................................ 84 3.10 Cambridge Community Knowledge Exchange .......................................................... 93 3.11 Mentoring in Hungary and Romania ........................................................................ 100 4. Summer Schools and other activities .............................................................................. 107 Appendix 1. Mentoring visits ............................................................................................... 111 Appendix 2: Other training and support .............................................................................. 113 Appendix 3: All Science Shop/pilot projects at the new Science Shop initiatives ............... 117 5 6 1. Introduction PERARES is a project funded by the European Commission from 2010-2014. It aims to strengthen interaction in formulating research agendas between researchers and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). This is implemented in various ways, both at the level of research organizations, and at regional / transnational / European levels. The project set-up an international on-line dialogue facility to set research questions and agenda’s, it experimented with scenario-workshops with stakeholders on the course of research, and set up international co-operation among CSOs and researchers on a number of topics. Also, studies were made on the ties between research with and for CSOs with higher education strategy and research funders’ policies, and evaluation tools were made. In this report, we describe our efforts to set up Science Shops or similar facilities, in ten different regions, and support various other initiatives. Through these Science Shops as connectors, CSOs can indicate their requests for research to the research institute(s), and together a research question can be put on the agenda of the institute(s). This leads to co- creation of new knowledge and civil society and research get mutually engaged. SCIENCE SHOPS1 operate under different names and in different ways throughout Europe and beyond. What they share, is that research is done on the basis of concerns of civil society, as articulated by CSOs, and that projects are governed in a partnership between CSOs and research institutes (by a project steering committee). Sometimes CSO members participate as researcher themselves or the CSOs perform the whole research, with some methodological support from researchers; sometimes this participation in the research itself is not possible or the CSOs themselves prefer a separation from the research, in order to use it as ‘independent’ results. 1 The mission