Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SOCIETY Rinascimento (SOCIETY Rinascimento)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-05-01 al 2022-04-30
The European Researchers' Night of Society Rinascimento is an initiative aimed for various purposes.
To showcase that research consists of an effective approach to build knowledge and improve our understanding of the world in which we live;
To favor the meeting between citizens and researchers through a wide range of activities, promoting a mutual exchange between researchers and participants;
To inspire young students to embrace research career by showing research as a powerful tool to decrypt reality, which can be applied in any direction and exploits a wide range of personal capacities;
To offer a wide and composite image of research and researchers, to suggest that research embraces all areas of knowledge, tools and approaches, well beyond stereotypes;
To organize an event that will represent research as a very general, strong methodology that can be applied to the study of any field of interest;
To highlight the wideness of research horizons and emphasize the importance of inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches, seeking the involvement of a greater number of researchers coming from disciplines such as the humanities or social sciences that are usually underrepresented at the Researchers’ Night;
To engage a wide variety of participants, through the offer of a number of fun-based activities during the Night to attract a general public and ensure the participation of families with children;
To make the Researchers’ Night the perfect occasion for a true, two-ways, engaging communication, where views and priorities are shared and discussed in a friendly environment.
To showcase that research consists of an effective approach to build knowledge and improve our understanding of the world in which we live;
To favor the meeting between citizens and researchers through a wide range of activities, promoting a mutual exchange between researchers and participants;
To inspire young students to embrace research career by showing research as a powerful tool to decrypt reality, which can be applied in any direction and exploits a wide range of personal capacities;
To offer a wide and composite image of research and researchers, to suggest that research embraces all areas of knowledge, tools and approaches, well beyond stereotypes;
To organize an event that will represent research as a very general, strong methodology that can be applied to the study of any field of interest;
To highlight the wideness of research horizons and emphasize the importance of inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches, seeking the involvement of a greater number of researchers coming from disciplines such as the humanities or social sciences that are usually underrepresented at the Researchers’ Night;
To engage a wide variety of participants, through the offer of a number of fun-based activities during the Night to attract a general public and ensure the participation of families with children;
To make the Researchers’ Night the perfect occasion for a true, two-ways, engaging communication, where views and priorities are shared and discussed in a friendly environment.
Most of the awareness campaign and of the pre-events were thus concentrated in the period from August 25 to September 24.
As in previous Society projects, a considerable part of the work of WP1 was dedicated to the organization and promotion of a rich program of: 1) pre-events for the general public, in the framework of “Aspettando la Notte Europea dei Ricercatori” (Waiting for the ERN) series) 2) lessons for the schools of all levels in the framework of "Per le Scuole 2021" program.
In 2021 30 pre-events (24 onsite or in mixed mode and 6 fully online) were organized in the month preceding the ERN. The relatively good situation in Italy as concerns the Covid-19 pandemics allowed us to organize the majority of pre-events onsite, although the participants were limited in number by health safety rules. Most pre-events and the main ERN event were included in the summer event program promoted by the Municipality of Bologna "Bologna Estate". This gave good visibility to the project and contributed positively to the awareness campaign.
Researchers from the Society consortium made themselves available to give face-to-face or online lectures in the schools. The rich program of available lessons (a total of 74 for all school levels) was advertised directly to teachers and also through the channels of the Regional School Office of the Ministry of Education. Schools in Italy start mid-September and this leaves too little time to plan lessons before ERN. Furthermore, this year, schools had to face quite challenging problems for returning students to attendance after last year's remote teaching period. For these reasons most lessons have been scheduled to take place in the period after ERN, preferably by the end of October, but even beyond.
SOCIETY Rinascimento organized activities and events for the European Researchers’ Night in 2021 in seven towns in the Emilia Romagna Region, Italy: Bologna, Ravenna, Forlì, Cesena, Rimini, Predappio and, for the first time, Ferrara. Given the difficulty to predict the evolution of the pandemic and of the corresponding restrictions, the consortium decided from the very beginning to opt for a dual approach, organizing activities and events both online and in the streets.
The SOCIETY Rinascimento project organised a mixed online/onsite event, featuring 37.5% of activities in presence and 62.5% online. A total number of 384 researchers were involved, 10 of whom benefited from MSCA funds, while 91 researchers were supported by other EU schemes.
We estimated that approximately 4700 people attended all events. Considering the pandemic limitations, we registered a good onsite attendance in Bologna (approximately 2000 participants), Rimini (354), Ferrara (330), Ravenna (231), Forlì (144). Online activities were followed through the sharevent platform (723 registered users) or through social media channels such as youtube and Fb (965). The web page where the scientific magazine Sapere was made available for download had more than 800 accesses, both during the Night (183) and afterwards.
As in previous Society projects, a considerable part of the work of WP1 was dedicated to the organization and promotion of a rich program of: 1) pre-events for the general public, in the framework of “Aspettando la Notte Europea dei Ricercatori” (Waiting for the ERN) series) 2) lessons for the schools of all levels in the framework of "Per le Scuole 2021" program.
In 2021 30 pre-events (24 onsite or in mixed mode and 6 fully online) were organized in the month preceding the ERN. The relatively good situation in Italy as concerns the Covid-19 pandemics allowed us to organize the majority of pre-events onsite, although the participants were limited in number by health safety rules. Most pre-events and the main ERN event were included in the summer event program promoted by the Municipality of Bologna "Bologna Estate". This gave good visibility to the project and contributed positively to the awareness campaign.
Researchers from the Society consortium made themselves available to give face-to-face or online lectures in the schools. The rich program of available lessons (a total of 74 for all school levels) was advertised directly to teachers and also through the channels of the Regional School Office of the Ministry of Education. Schools in Italy start mid-September and this leaves too little time to plan lessons before ERN. Furthermore, this year, schools had to face quite challenging problems for returning students to attendance after last year's remote teaching period. For these reasons most lessons have been scheduled to take place in the period after ERN, preferably by the end of October, but even beyond.
SOCIETY Rinascimento organized activities and events for the European Researchers’ Night in 2021 in seven towns in the Emilia Romagna Region, Italy: Bologna, Ravenna, Forlì, Cesena, Rimini, Predappio and, for the first time, Ferrara. Given the difficulty to predict the evolution of the pandemic and of the corresponding restrictions, the consortium decided from the very beginning to opt for a dual approach, organizing activities and events both online and in the streets.
The SOCIETY Rinascimento project organised a mixed online/onsite event, featuring 37.5% of activities in presence and 62.5% online. A total number of 384 researchers were involved, 10 of whom benefited from MSCA funds, while 91 researchers were supported by other EU schemes.
We estimated that approximately 4700 people attended all events. Considering the pandemic limitations, we registered a good onsite attendance in Bologna (approximately 2000 participants), Rimini (354), Ferrara (330), Ravenna (231), Forlì (144). Online activities were followed through the sharevent platform (723 registered users) or through social media channels such as youtube and Fb (965). The web page where the scientific magazine Sapere was made available for download had more than 800 accesses, both during the Night (183) and afterwards.
The results indicate that both the pre-event scientific meetings and the Researcher’ Night attracted a diverse audience, including young and senior people, and all the events were highly appreciated by most attendees. The number of participants in the school events and the main event surveys were lower with respect to those obtained in 2020. There may be a number of reasons for this. Firstly, COVID-related restrictions impacted both the organization of events (especially in schools) and the possibility to distribute surveys (especially in presence). Secondly, the online modality of the main RN event in 2020 allowed contacting all participants through their e-mail registration. This was not possible for in-presence events and, indeed, data collection has been similar to prior editions (e.g. 2019).
Participants’ views and opinions about the events and topics related to the scientific research were collected via structured questions. The main objectives were to collect information about the participants such as their satisfaction with general and specific aspects of the RN, the impact on their views and opinions about scientific research, increase of their scientific knowledge, their ideas about the forthcoming challenges of the European Union and their socio-demographic data. Overall, the results of the surveys indicate high levels of satisfaction among attendees and a positive contribution to their views of scientific research as well as to their scientific knowledge. Further improvements in the organization of pre-events and RN activities can concentrate on encouraging more interactive and engaging interventions by the research teams. Participants across different type of events and channels (online or offline) were particularly attracted by innovative or game-like activities.
Results from the survey administered to secondary school students after meetings with researchers indicate that these events reached a large number of students (particularly from scientific lyceums) and were highly appreciated. The findings on students’ opinions about scientific research suggest that participants are mostly convinced of the positive impact of science and many of them are interested in taking up a research career. However, they are less informed about the EU’s impact on funding opportunities and have a negative opinion of the national government’s support. These aspects could be further highlighted for future educational events that aim to increase awareness and support about research among young people.
Overall, the assessment suggests that diversifying events among scientific meetings, teaser events, school meetings and a main event is a good method to reach people with different age and interests..
Participants’ views and opinions about the events and topics related to the scientific research were collected via structured questions. The main objectives were to collect information about the participants such as their satisfaction with general and specific aspects of the RN, the impact on their views and opinions about scientific research, increase of their scientific knowledge, their ideas about the forthcoming challenges of the European Union and their socio-demographic data. Overall, the results of the surveys indicate high levels of satisfaction among attendees and a positive contribution to their views of scientific research as well as to their scientific knowledge. Further improvements in the organization of pre-events and RN activities can concentrate on encouraging more interactive and engaging interventions by the research teams. Participants across different type of events and channels (online or offline) were particularly attracted by innovative or game-like activities.
Results from the survey administered to secondary school students after meetings with researchers indicate that these events reached a large number of students (particularly from scientific lyceums) and were highly appreciated. The findings on students’ opinions about scientific research suggest that participants are mostly convinced of the positive impact of science and many of them are interested in taking up a research career. However, they are less informed about the EU’s impact on funding opportunities and have a negative opinion of the national government’s support. These aspects could be further highlighted for future educational events that aim to increase awareness and support about research among young people.
Overall, the assessment suggests that diversifying events among scientific meetings, teaser events, school meetings and a main event is a good method to reach people with different age and interests..