Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BlueNIGHTs (A touch of Blue in the EU Research Nights for a more Sustainable Use of the Ocean)
Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2023-02-28
The United Nations has proclaimed the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) (https://en.unesco.org/ocean-decade). The General Assembly of the United Nations provided a fundamental framework by indicating major Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 to ensure a sustainable development that can benefit all. Among them, SDG 14 is devoted to the conservation and sustainably use of the ocean, seas and marine resources for the development of a new, inclusive, interconnected and healthier global (ocean) literate society. In order to contribute to the achievement of these goals, the European Commission (EC) – Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) launched in 2020 the 1st EU4Ocean initiative (https://www.marineboard.eu/eu4ocean-coalition-ocean-literacy) implemented by a consortium of 12 partners, to supports the creation of an EU-wide EU4Ocean Coalition that promote collective actions of Ocean Literacy (OL).
Expected impacts are:
- an increased awareness among the general public of the importance of Research & Innovation and more favourable general attitude towards its public funding;
- a better understanding of the key benefits that research brings to society;
- a reduction of stereotypes about researchers and their profession and increase of people taking up research careers, particularly young people and among them girls;
- a better understanding of the European Union among the general audience through the development of complementary approaches to contribute to the general public understanding of the EU.
Expected impacts are:
- an increased awareness among the general public of the importance of Research & Innovation and more favourable general attitude towards its public funding;
- a better understanding of the key benefits that research brings to society;
- a reduction of stereotypes about researchers and their profession and increase of people taking up research careers, particularly young people and among them girls;
- a better understanding of the European Union among the general audience through the development of complementary approaches to contribute to the general public understanding of the EU.
In order to raise public awareness about the EU Researchers’ Night initiative, promote their participation in the main event on 30th September 2022 and offer them different ways to meet and interact with the researchers, the project partners organised several pre-events in different contexts and with different degrees of involvement during 2022.
As for the co-building the virtual Aranda R/V, HOLO3 recreated the 3D modelling of the virtual Aranda R/V, a short teaser presenting the work made to model the digital twin and the free visit experience, the integration of a virtual Aranda R/V free tour on Android tablets/smartphones to allow user to freely navigate around the virtual R/V, a free tour integrated on web browsers and then for virtual reality headsets, production of the first point of interest (POI) to guide the users through the experience.
BlueNIGHTs organised EU Researchers’ Night events in 13 cities representing the main EU Regional Sea Areas (RSAs):
- Tulcea/Galati for the Black RSA;
- Venice/Trieste/Naples and Valletta for the Mediterranean RSA;
- Torreira-Murtosa/Lisbon/Horta for the Atlantic RSA;
- Boulogne-sur-Mer for the English Channel/North RSA;
- Helsinki for the Baltic RSA.
Activities were also organised in Strasbourg and Bologna as inland location.
All the BlueNIGHTs were also connected via a dedicated online platform, so participants could ‘visit’ the other nights (https://bluenights.vfairs.com/) and see activities proposed in all six countries (see Deliverable D3.1 for details).
During the first year of the project, 32 researchers belonging to the partner Consortium made available 46 meetings for the schools most of them onsite. The interactions were mostly based on seminars, workshops and hands-on activities. Several topics were requested by or offered to the schools among which 11 % online and 89% onsite. 30 schools (19 high, 10 middle, 1 primary) were involved, with some more pupils participating not directly by their schools and some teachers trained in specific meetings with researchers. 10 schools were located in Italy, 2 in Portugal, 11 in Finland, 7 in Malta. About 60 classes were involved, for a total of about 1550 pupils together with about 80 teachers. A total of about 1250 pupils were involved in other type of pre-events such as beach clean-up, guided tour, experiments, etc. by 29 researchers (see Deliverable D4.1 for details).
The impact evaluations collected through the questionnaires were used both within the project and to compare it with projects of a similar nature in order to improve its activities and increase its effectiveness. Four questionnaires were used: pre-events (WP1); schools (WP4); Night (WP3); researchers. The texts of the questionnaires were translated into 6 languages: English, Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian and Finnish, to make them more easily administered in different local contexts.
As for the co-building the virtual Aranda R/V, HOLO3 recreated the 3D modelling of the virtual Aranda R/V, a short teaser presenting the work made to model the digital twin and the free visit experience, the integration of a virtual Aranda R/V free tour on Android tablets/smartphones to allow user to freely navigate around the virtual R/V, a free tour integrated on web browsers and then for virtual reality headsets, production of the first point of interest (POI) to guide the users through the experience.
BlueNIGHTs organised EU Researchers’ Night events in 13 cities representing the main EU Regional Sea Areas (RSAs):
- Tulcea/Galati for the Black RSA;
- Venice/Trieste/Naples and Valletta for the Mediterranean RSA;
- Torreira-Murtosa/Lisbon/Horta for the Atlantic RSA;
- Boulogne-sur-Mer for the English Channel/North RSA;
- Helsinki for the Baltic RSA.
Activities were also organised in Strasbourg and Bologna as inland location.
All the BlueNIGHTs were also connected via a dedicated online platform, so participants could ‘visit’ the other nights (https://bluenights.vfairs.com/) and see activities proposed in all six countries (see Deliverable D3.1 for details).
During the first year of the project, 32 researchers belonging to the partner Consortium made available 46 meetings for the schools most of them onsite. The interactions were mostly based on seminars, workshops and hands-on activities. Several topics were requested by or offered to the schools among which 11 % online and 89% onsite. 30 schools (19 high, 10 middle, 1 primary) were involved, with some more pupils participating not directly by their schools and some teachers trained in specific meetings with researchers. 10 schools were located in Italy, 2 in Portugal, 11 in Finland, 7 in Malta. About 60 classes were involved, for a total of about 1550 pupils together with about 80 teachers. A total of about 1250 pupils were involved in other type of pre-events such as beach clean-up, guided tour, experiments, etc. by 29 researchers (see Deliverable D4.1 for details).
The impact evaluations collected through the questionnaires were used both within the project and to compare it with projects of a similar nature in order to improve its activities and increase its effectiveness. Four questionnaires were used: pre-events (WP1); schools (WP4); Night (WP3); researchers. The texts of the questionnaires were translated into 6 languages: English, Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian and Finnish, to make them more easily administered in different local contexts.
BlueNIGHTs will relies on the idea to plant “blue” seeds across Europe to strengthen Ocean Literacy for all and favour the growth of a new EU network of ERNs dedicated to ocean issues and to the achievement of the SDGs, responding to the UN Decades of Ocean Science and to key EU initiatives on Ocean Literacy (e.g. EU4Ocean, EU Blue School Network).
BlueNIGHTs aims also to strengthen the link between researchers and the territory where they live by preparing and organising events and activities in cities representing the main EU RSAs.
A renewed alliance between all kind of “sciences” and society represents indeed an essential step supporting resilient communities and increasing our capacity to adapt to a fast-changing world and meet the 2030 Agenda goals, and in particular those of the SDG 14.
BlueNIGHTs aims also to strengthen the link between researchers and the territory where they live by preparing and organising events and activities in cities representing the main EU RSAs.
A renewed alliance between all kind of “sciences” and society represents indeed an essential step supporting resilient communities and increasing our capacity to adapt to a fast-changing world and meet the 2030 Agenda goals, and in particular those of the SDG 14.