LEAF: heaL thE plAnet's Future

Project Information

LEAF

Grant agreement ID: 101060194

DOI

10.3030/101060194

Project closed

EC signature date 21 April 2022

Start date 1 March 2022

End date 31 October 2023

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 300 250,00

Coordinated by

ASSOCIAZIONE FRASCATI SCIENZA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LEAF (LEAF: heaL thE plAnet's Future)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main objective of the LEAF ("heaL thE plAnet’s Future") project was to increase the awareness on the importance of research and innovation and to improve trust in the researcher's work by effectively involving the society in experimenting science through hands-on events focused on a set of EU Green Deal selected topics, summarised as:
1. Increase the awareness on the importance of research and innovation: enlarging the public’s interest on the EU Green Deal topics.
2. Improve trust in researchers' work, by bringing researchers closer to the general public.
3. Better understanding of the key benefits that research brings to society in daily life
4. Reduce the stereotypes about researchers and improve gender equality in STEAM
5. Increase the interest of people in pursuing scientific careers:

In this respect, to achieve all the project objectives, Frascati Scienza realized, only in the 2023 edition, almost 500 events onsite (in 32 Italian cities) and online, with approximately 28000 participants, increasing all the results already achieved in 2022 edition. The program was divided into two sections: one for schools and one for the general public.
Approximately 2300 people were involved in the organization, including 1956 researchers or workers in scientific sectors: among them, there were 21 researchers having benefited from Marie Sklodowska-Curie schemes and 84 having benefited from EU support (FP7, H2020…), other than MSCA.
The "Researchers@Schools" activities have been very successful among both LEAF23 partners and schools, confirming what observed in 2022, and in the two editions of LEAF project we reached, overcoming the starting targets, almost 12000 Students, from 3 to 19 years, from 99 schools located in 43 Italian cities. Moreover, 237 researchers have been involved in this kind of activity. This result clearly showed the success of the EU Commission to insert a dedicated WP for activities inside schools and the enthusiasm of the involved researchers and institutions to go inside schools to directly meet students and teachers.

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

Project activities took place between 23 and 30 September 2023, also called “Science Week” with a peak of events on Friday 29, 2023, the so- called NIGHT. The choice to offer events during the entire week is important, as learned from our experience, to create a specific program dedicated to schools with morning activities reserved for visiting classes. Before the “Science Week”, starting from December 2022 some launching events have been organized for schools and the general public. In the following there is the list of activities delivered:

- Hands-on experiments
- Workshops: science Workshops addressed to everyone who wants to learn
- Science shows: fun and interactive events to discuss the next challenges for science
- Science games and contests: activities to approach science in funny and interactive ways and specifically realized for schools, youngsters and families.
- Science chats: informal scientific activities, such as science cafés, science aperitifs and books’ presentations organized inside pubs, bars and public libraries
- Gigalabs: innovative events characterized by high quality scientific contents and immersive scenography, especially designed for pupils and students from 3 to 19 years old.
- Guided tours inside the labs
- Science trips: to bring research (and researchers) outside the laboratories, in public buildings, streets and squares, historical, cultural and archaeological sites and natural areas
- Exhibitions: interactive science exhibitions, with the participation of researcher or a science communicator, to highlight the achievements of research and designed to be experienced both in free and guided tours;
- Research traineeships: traineeships dedicated to high school students.
- Online activities: workshops, shows and games realized online
- European corner: a dedicated space to allow people to meet researchers supported by the EU and also to present MSCA projects

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)

The past experience of Frascati Scienza in managing ERN projects together with the data collected by using surveys (from 2006 to 2022) have posed the ground for increasing the positive results of the LEAF project.
We completely fitted the foreseen outputs of the project, as we list below:

- Increased awareness among the general public of the importance of research and innovation and more favourable general attitude towards its funding, thanks to the awareness campaign and the quality of the events proposed (we estimated around 28000 participants in the European Researchers' Night and approximately 2300 people were involved in the organization, including 1956 researchers or workers in scientific sectors). In addition to that, the "Researchers@Schools" activities have been very successful in the 2 editions as we reached almost 12000 Students from 99 schools located in 43 Italian cities, involving 237 researchers.

- Better understanding of the key benefits that research brings to society, thanks to the impact assessment and the evaluation of ex-ante and ex-post surveys. we observed that most of the respondents thought that LEAF 2023 contributed to let people understand why doing research is important and that science is fun and that research is accessible to anyone while the majority of the attendants to the LEAF 2023 believes the role of research is very relevant for our country as well as for the importance of research in Europe.

- Reduction in the stereotypes about researchers and their profession. As in the past edition, we noticed that more adult women (61.2%) than male participated in LEAF 2023. Instead of kids, the percentage of males and females was comparable. The highest percentage of respondents to the ex-post questionnaire are in the age range of 10-19 y.o. (26,7%) and of 40-49 years old (21.1%). These results mean that the organized activities mainly attract families with children, but the LEAF program in general has been able to attract a wider audience too, which motivates the uniformity of the age distribution.

- Increase of people pursuing research careers, in the long term. We had almost equal numbers of female and male participating children (5-14 years old). This is an important result to fight the gender bias and stereotype on STEM disciplines in future generations.

- Better understanding of the European Union among the general public. Most of the respondents thinks that LEAF 2023 contributed to let people understand benefits that research generates for the society (61.8%), that science is fun (72.9%), to understand researchers’ work different disciplines (68.5%), to understand research is accessible to everyone (69.2%) and to understand how to become a researcher (52.0%).

Poster LEAF 2023