Objective
Children’s university is the most radical opening towards the general public that universities can undertake. If scientists provide lectures for children and children conquer auditories and laboratories, stereotyped images of science and scientists are knocked on the head immediately. New attractive and fascinating images of science and scientists appear. The first Children's university in Germanys Tübingen (2002), constituted a new format of science awareness activities, awarded with Descartes Prize for Science Communication. The successful idea of Children’s universities spread out. Up to now 100 Children's Universities filled 1.000.000 places with children aged from 7 to 12 years. But a European wide network does not exist and most of the Children’s Universities are situated in German speaking countries. Each of the 100 Children’s universities works solitary, as a single player and with a strong regional focus. Guidelines and quality criteria of established Children’s Universities does not exist. Some selective efficiency analyses let us assume, that children change their mind on science sustainably, but an overview of research result is missing. EUCUNET (European Children’s University Network) will coordinate a network of Children’s Universities preparing a knowledge base for present and future Children’s Universities Providers in order to professionalize the Children’s Universities movement. In conferences, through managed Development and Consultant Partnerships and on the community web portal a sustainable network should be established with the aim of knowledge sharing and capacity building. EUCUNET enables the European wide dissemination of the idea of Children’s university, invites stakeholders from different fields to develop the idea (especially policy maker) and helps establishing new Children’s universities. Hence more Children have the chance to participate in Children’s universities and set fire to the fascination of science.
Keywords
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP7-SCIENCE-IN-SOCIETY-2007-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CSA-CA - Coordination (or networking) actionsCoordinator
1010 Wien
Austria