INTERSECTIONS

Project Information

INTERSECTIONS

Grant agreement ID: 101036117

DOI

10.3030/101036117

Project closed

EC signature date 29 April 2021

Start date 1 May 2021

End date 28 February 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 123 978,00

EU contribution

€ 103 815,00

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY COURT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INTERSECTIONS (INTERSECTIONS)

Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

INTERSECTIONS showcased the international, intersectional, interdisciplinary, & interrelated nature of research across Europe in a series of audience-focused & interactive online & in-person events for European Researcher’s Night 2021. The overriding aim was to:
‘Celebrate the diversity of research & researchers across Europe, & unambiguously illustrate the relevance & application of research to daily life.’
Our key objectives for our NIGHT were:
Showcase a truly Europe-wide diversity & intersectionality of research & researchers
Inspire young people with the accessibility, relevance, & diversity of research careers
Support dialogue between researchers & citizens
Deliver a selection of inclusive & audience-focused events
Engage audiences from across Europe online & in-person
Demonstrate the relevance of research to daily life
Demonstrate the importance of European funding in research
Create connections between researchers & citizen groups that can continue beyond this delivery
Create connections between researchers across Europe
Demonstrate that Europe-wide engagement activity can be meaningful & impactful
Further understand any barriers to Europe-wide engagement activity, & how these can be addressed
Create a legacy & a pilot for the research engagement field in terms of delivering an international, interdisciplinary, & intersectional event such as this.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

INTERSECTIONS was a fully digital delivery of European Researcher’s Night (ERN) 2021 run by two consortium partners, the University of St Andrews (USTAN) & the Natural History Consortium (BNHC). This edition ran independently of all other NIGHTs, providing a platform on which researchers & publics across Europe could participate. In 2021 INTERSECTIONS delivered a group of activities on an international basis.
We delivered 3 interconnected Europe-wide engagement activity strands & 1 peer support & delivery strand over the NIGHT:
European Research Showcase (ERS): a 48 hour social media marathon, on Twitter, Instagram & YouTube which showcased short films, animations, or demonstrations of research conducted across Europe every 15 minutes throughout the day. 65 researchers (22 with MSCA funding) from 17 different countries with more than 25 nationalities & 29 subject disciplines took part. They reached 336,930 on Twitter, 16,840 on Instagram, & 4540 on Facebook, with video engagement rates above the average for each platform (11.7 2.64 & 9.43% respectively).
European BioBlitz (EuroBioBlitz): 48hr citizen science project, encouraging researchers & publics to work together to explore & record the different flora & fauna evident across our different nations in a race against the clock to fill in the map with biodiversity data. Participation was enhanced & facilitated by an online programme of researcher led engagement content (speed talks, demos, social media posts). This was an important component in the programme, reflecting the fact that anyone can aspire to be a researcher. Using the iNaturalist app, we were able to collect 53,058 wildlife observations & 7,012 different species from 8,217 unique digital volunteers/lay participants from 43 countries.
Intersections: collaboration bringing together PhD students & postgraduate composition students around Europe to create new music based on their collective experiences & research. This was the basis of a live concert & a legacy of music inspired by research in Europe. 5 new collaborations were formed between early career researchers (from 5 subject disciplines) & composition students, engaging 158 people via YouTube & in-person performances.
ERN NIGHT coordinators: created a new network, hosted through a Slack workspace, through which NIGHT coordinators across Europe could interact & seek peer support at any time during the grant period. This workspace included channels on impact measurement & reporting, training provision including possibilities for training exchange, marketing tips, digital delivery, & any other topic the membership required. It currently has 50 members. Finally, INTERSECTIONS, in collaboration with the European Science Engagement Association, (EUSEA), we also delivered three ‘BiteSized’ events for coordinators, supporting direct online peer to peer learning & interactions. These events were attended by 93 people (48 were NIGHT coordinators).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

INTERSECTIONS was an experiment in creating events that would cut across multiple NIGHT projects in Europe. We garnered several considerations for future iterations of the project that may benefit the wider engagement community.

We would lengthen our recruitment period, with a view to starting researcher recruitment well in advance of the summer holidays.
We would like the NIGHT & the recruitment process to reflect the expected workload & availability of researchers.
It would be preferable for video content creation to be completed prior to the summer holidays.
Include more ore pre- & year-round activities for schools with multiple contact points.
Include school involvement with the other activities, such as inviting schools to an Intersections concert or having them record a ‘kitchen-side’ science experiment for the ERS.
We would specifically target resources for this for multilingual translation as demand was higher than expected.
Expand ERS to TikTok as a natural progression where pre-recorded video content is the medium & reach a different audience.
ERS & the EuroBioBlitz were incredibly successful in establishing demand for Europe-wide activities.
Bitesized training events for ERN coordinators enabled the sharing of best practice & created an ongoing legacy via the Slack channel.

Lastly, the goal of this NIGHT was to pilot & create a legacy for the research engagement field in terms of delivering an international, interdisciplinary, & intersectional event. As the first NIGHT of its kind, this was an overall success. With digital engagement at the forefront for the past couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, INTERSECTIONS is an example of how widespread, international, & collaborative engagement events can be. This was evidenced not only by the number of researchers & audience members engaged with each of the events/activities, but also by the overall positive feedback from the feedback surveys.

INTERSECTIONS Twitter banner_Overlapping coloured circles with a call for participation on the NIGHT