Final Report Summary - KIICS (KiiCS - Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science)
Executive Summary:
KiiCS (Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science) was a three-year project, coordinated by Ecsite, the European Network of Science Centres and Museums, that attempted to dissolve the lines between creativity, science, technology and business to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation. It showed the positive and mutual influence of science, technology and the creative sector to support innovation through concrete actions. The project supported the setting up of innovation processes that associated scientific and creative skills with a view:
• to give evidence of the positive impact of this interaction on innovation and creativity;
• to integrate different disciplines to stimulate new forms of collaboration;
• to encourage young people to engage in scientific activities;
• to support entrepreneurship and business development.
Artists and scientists think alike: they tend to approach "life” with a similar open-mindedness, curiosity and trials. KiiCS enhanced such a similar way of thinking by testing incubation art&science modules (9 aimed at adults + 6 aimed at young people) that attracted more than 5000 participants across Europe, amongst which artists, creative professionals and scientists but also citizens and "creativity passionates”.
KiiCS ultimately resulted in:
• 24 innovative ideas stemming from arts & science collaboration.
• Raising novel skills (creativity, team building, …)
• Setting up new multidisciplinary and collaborative working spaces
• Strengthened partnerships with the local stakeholders (from the arts, science, education and business communities to the local governments)
• The experimentation of bottom-up processes to better engage with citizens or students and make art & science relevant to the local community
• Different themes explored within existing initiatives and organisations (music and neuroscience, urban development, mobility, tourism, sustainable fashion..)
• Upcoming multidisciplinary courses in local schools
• A Guide on how to carry out Art & Science Incubation actions available in 7 languages
Not only the KiiCS project has engaged with thousands of Europeans to experiment with art and science, it also developed novel formats and methodologies to link the two fields and produce incubators. A Guide on how to carry out Art & Science Incubation actions was disseminated to many professionals and actors in the field. It was presented in 3 Open Training Workshops at various high-level European events such as Ars Electronica Festival or The Ecsite Annual Conference.
Finally, as part of its last newsletter, KiiCS has produced key learnings from the project, remaining challenges and policy recommendations.
KiiCS promotion videos: http://www.kiics.eu/en/Videos-Publications/KiiCS-Promo-Videos/KiiCS-Promo-Videos/
Project Context and Objectives:
The economy is increasingly innovation-led and creativity has become a key competitiveness indicator. Business in general and ICT in particular rely more and more on creative content to make their products and services more attractive. Research is required to be more effective, accountable and result-oriented. Its outcomes should be better communicated and exploited to make science closer to society and improve quality of life.
Science and the arts can help answer such a quest for innovative approaches to the economy and society. They both rely on creative processes based on experiments, trials and failures; they both make use of imagination and critical thinking; both are provocative and risk-taking; both use an explorative approach to research and creation.
Art and science incubation brings together complementary skills and expertise to develop and test new ideas in an interactive and experimental fashion, thus:
• Introducing scientists to new social environments where they can share their research with non-scientific people. It enhances the "social responsibility” of science end encourages active debates on the links between science, society and ethics. Artists convey messages on the social and ethical impacts of science in new and attractive ways.
• Contributing to scientific culture, research and careers by promoting and highlighting the creative character of science and its practical implications. Art and science incubation encourages multidisciplinary work to get more innovation out of scientific research.
• Stimulating new forms of economic and social innovation by enhancing non-technological and user-driven approaches to new products, services or processes. Art and science incubation offers potential solutions to improve quality of life.
KiiCS (Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science) is a 3-year European Commission-funded project (February 2012 – January 2015) aiming to:
• Develop and explore original and innovative processes, methods and tools to "incubate” arts, science and technology. Artists and scientists are brought together to produce and work on new, innovative ideas thus providing evidence of the positive impact of art and science interaction on creativity and innovation.
• Encourage young people to engage in scientific activities and raise their interest in science and technology. Young adults (14-17 years old) are invited to discover new ways to look at science with the support of creative and artistic interventions.
• Explore business partnership and market potential for the most innovative ideas stemming from art and science interaction. These are presented to businesses and potential investors to offer them a business development opportunity.
KiiCS’ ultimate goal is to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking: participants are encouraged to work together across sectors’ boundaries to stimulate new forms of creativity and socioeconomic innovation.
KiiCS supported the development of innovation incubation modules in 9 European cities associating science and technology with the creative sectors. From these incubation modules 18 innovative ideas and projects were selected to compete for KiiCS awards. With a view to engage young adults in the project and devise methods to inspire scientific careers, 9 science/education centres (as Ecsite Third Parties) were linked to 9 consortium incubator partners to develop collaboration processes involving science, technology and creative sectors with the participation of young adults (14-17 years old). This lead to 6 concrete collaborative European partnerships generating 6 innovative ideas.
KiiCS is a unique project. Its originality lies in getting scientists and creative people in the same physical place in order to stimulate interactions between different disciplines and sectors in a process of mutual learning across Europe.
KiiCS activities are divided into different phases
I/ Research on incubation: February – August 2012
The first phase of the project helped identify existing processes in Europe and beyond to incubate creative and innovative ideas stemming from the interaction between the creative sectors and science.
The results were disseminated internally first to inspire the set of local actions, and will be disseminated later on a European level through the "Art & Science Incubation Guide".
II/ Adult incubation: September 2012 – June 2014
The second phase started with the European joint launch of incubation modules for adults: the 9 "Incubator Partners" established, with the help of stakeholders, 9 incubation modules throughout Europe around a large variety of themes like "smart cities", "life sciences", "sustainable energy and transport" or "music and neuroscience". Each Incubator Partner chose a specific way for implementing incubation actions: laboratories, workshops, lectures, exhibitions, artists’ residencies, etc. Incubation Partners were supported by Local Networks of representative stakeholders from the local scientific, artistic, business and policy communities.
From these incubation modules, 18 innovative ideas/projects/processes have been identified and selected to compete for the European KiiCS Award.
III/ Young adults incubation: December 2012 – June 2014
The third phase started with the European joint launch of the collaborative processes for young adults: the 9 "Third Parties" worked jointly with the 9 "Incubator Partners" to develop multidisciplinary collaborative processes targeting young adults: workshops, lab sessions, interactive exhibits, activities in schools or performances, etc. A Youth Advisory Board, composed of 9 young adults, contributed to the activities and dissemination of the project among young people. Each incubator partner proposed a member of the Youth Advisory Board.
From these incubation actions, 6 innovative ideas/projects/processes have been identified and selected to compete for the KiiCS Youth Award.
IV/ Dissemination of results and achievements: July 2014 – January 2015
At the end of the project, numerous communication actions were foreseen, including the KiiCS Awards Ceremony to award the best adult and youth ideas developed.
Project Results:
Science Gallery is the WP1 leader for the KiiCS project and is responsible for researching and collating input to complete the exploration and assessment of existing incubation actions and the production of the incubation Do-It-Yourself Toolkit. Throughout the first period of the project, Science Gallery has worked together with Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
and Fondazione IDIS – Città della Scienza (Idis) with input from KiiCS consortium members to carry out the main activities of WP1 - to research the state of the art on incubation activities for both adults and young adults in arts, science and innovation. This involved extensive data collection and review with the aim of facilitating peer learning within the KiiCS consortium. This activity resulted in the identification of existing processes and platforms in Europe that incubate creative and innovative ideas and processes emerging from the interaction between the creative sectors and science. Science Gallery summarised these processes and platforms in the report Incubator State of the Arts: Preliminary report on incubators processes from desk research and collections of experiences. This report focused on incubation models geared towards adults and highlighted case studies from the KiiCS consortium partners and other relevant European organisations. The case studies were carried out by Science Gallery together with UPF, and Idis participated in the establishment of recommendations for future incubators. A second report, Incubators for Young Adults: Preliminary report on incubators processes from desk research and collections of experiences, dealt with incubation activities geared towards young adults. The specificity of the subject area warranted a broader remit the report on Adults and looked at incubation projects in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia.
In the second period of the project both of these reports, along with the results of the KiiCS project, were integrated into the development of the final deliverable - DIY Incubation Kit.
The Art and Science Incubation Toolkit was the third and final deliverable (D1.3) for Work Package 1 of the KiiCS project. The toolkit is a free tool that can be used to promote and develop incubation processes between science, art and creative fields, to offer advice gained from experiences throughout the KiiCS project, and to provide recommendations so that any user of the kit will be able to establish their own incubation activities.
From M27-31, Science Gallery collated and consolidated the learnings from all the KiiCS partners gained though the development of their incubation activities, drafted and designed the kit with in-house Science Gallery designer and printed them. The kit was also made available to download as PDF online on the KiiCS website, and was translated by partners into 7 languages.
A particular challenge was translation and trying to omit the use of prescription language in the toolkit itself. The toolkit’s aim was to be used by anyone, of any age but particularly young adults, interested in creating their own incubation activities and it did achieve this but only through a conscious effort of translating the wording into something more accessible for the public. Hence the title of the toolkit was changed to ‘Guide to Incubating Innovation in Art and Science’.
The Guide is available on the KiiCS website. The resource is also available on the Ecsite website. The hard copy of the toolkit was distributed to Ecsite’s 400 members and also all of KiiCS partners.
In WP2 which focuses on Adult Incubators, through a bottom-up approach, partners have developed and incubation modules within 9 cities (Naples, Barcelona, Grenoble, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Warsaw, and Ljubljana) after a European joint launch in September 2012 in Naples. The 9 "Incubator Partners” have established 9 incubation modules throughout Europe around a large variety of themes like "smart cities”, “sustainable development”, “digital prototyping”, "life sciences” or “musical creativity and neuroscience”, responding to the different local needs and the different enterprise fertilization strategies designed by the partners that could stimulate a high, innovative and transversal cultural profile of the incubation processes.
Incubation Partners were supported by Local Networks of representative stakeholders from the local scientific, artistic and policy communities, created during the first step of WP2. There are more than 40 bodies and institutions taking part in 9 different local consortiums, with various levels/typologies of partnership agreement. The incubation modules developed are actions and experimental approaches aimed at stimulating the production of new enterprise ideas (e.g. a products, a service, a process), or at enhancing people’s skills (e.g. artists in residence increasing workers’ motivation, scientist empowering artists with concepts and tools, or artists stimulating young adults’ willingness to study science) stemming from the interaction between the creative sectors and science. It is possible to distinguish two main categories: the incubation activities led by the process and those that are led by the outcome, with an effective mutual contamination. The first ones aim to involve scientists, artists and entrepreneurs in processes where arts, sciences, innovation and creativity are mixed together creating new environments or ways of innovative thinking. The second ones aim to produce concrete products: exhibitions, business ideas, enterprises, workshops and prototypes.
The European collaboration has been the main pillar to develop a common methodology for the incubation processes through a set of joint parameters for all partners to implement the actions and the work plans. The implementation of the nine incubation activities in partnership with local stakeholders has started fulfilling the established objectives. The task 1 (establishment of the city partnerships) and task 2 (elaboration of workplans and methodology) gave the project a strong structure to create a better condition for the implementation in the task 3 of the specific actions. Every incubation action included professional artist interacting with at least one scientist/researcher/business/technical professional to work creatively on solving issues relevant for each organization. The results of the incubation actions in a lot of cases had a strong and positive engagement with the local community of the cities involved. They also resulted in the generation of 18 innovative ideas that were submitted to the European KiiCs Award for Art and Science.
The second period of activities was very important for the implementation of the incubation actions and to reinforce the business attitude of the ideas selected. In some cases these activities arrived to the implementation of a business plan.
With the support of KiiCS, spaces and locations were created for the day to day contamination of art, science and innovation. In a lot of cases these spaces were created in a dedicated area of the partner’s building as for the Smart Lab Incubator in Naples or The Urban Lab Adult in Dublin or the BioTehna laboratory in Ljubiana. Many activities were hosted in public spaces and in very relevant Municipality’s locations. There was also an important integration of these spaces with the local FabLab as in Naples, Barcelona, Grenoble, Warsaw, Gothenburg.
There were a lot of relevant results, innovative ideas have been made, pre-incubation, mentoring and selection of startups have been implemented, events for a wider public have been organised.
The incubation actions show an innovative potential of interdisciplinary collaborations. Participants were recruited from different backgrounds (art/ creative/ science/ technology/ entrepreneurship). The mentors would also be from different backgrounds. While working in mixed groups the participants reached new creative potential and opened to future cross-discipline collaborations. The experts and professionals were a part of a creative process they helped the participants to open their minds to new possibilities of implementing science and technology in their development processes.
In workshops and events carried out the target audience responded positively to the subject matter and engaged with the theme through a variety of processes e.g. workshops, ideation bootcamps.
The methodology used to develop the most part of the incubation actions consisted in setting up an opening date for the call for proposals, announcing as well the closing date of the public call. Once the projects had been received, a jury was formed and the selection process began. After the selection the proposers of the ideas had the possibility to start to work. From this point there was quite a diversity of approaches of each partner so we have the following different activities:
- 15% Artist in residence (Art Catalyst,Kalepica)
Creative artistic processes in residences, involving artists and scientists, exploring new ways of collaboration in this field.
- 20% Creative innovation processes (UPF, Copernicus)
Focused on improving innovation capacity and entrepreneurial climate by having artistic competence stimulate creative and innovative thinking, as tools to develop the local innovation culture, attracting stakeholders.
- 20% Creative co-design processes (Waag,TILLT)
Open calls open to all citizens: artists and creators, entrepreneurs, researchers and engineers as well as people working in NGOs to select participants on a basis of a strong motivation.
- 15% Design-thinking (TILLT,Science Gallery)
improving innovation capacity and entrepreneurial climate by having artistic competence stimulate creative and innovative thinking, as tools to develop the local innovation culture, attracting stakeholders and attentions.
- 10% Creative workshops (IDIS, Le Casemate)
Realization of pilot workshops used to design the incubation model and to define the innovative ideas
- 15% Visualization (Science Gallery)
Drawing exploration through methods of abstraction, sketching, notation, and rapid visualization.
- 5% Other activities (IDIS, Waag)
Prototyping – rudimentary materialization of ideas to help with their further development –also using 3D printers
Overall about 1500 Europeans were involved in the core activities of the project in the different cities. Another 1000 participated at least in one event, workshop or labs and there was a very strong dissemination on the websites, through the social media and the official pages of the partners. There was a quite equal participation of women and men. Regarding the age of the participants, the average is between 25 and 40 years old. In the overall project we had people from 15 to 70 years old involved.
The activities of the Second Period generated a rich variety of ideas. All the ideas had enough time to be structured. Five partners have selected city topics in different aspects such as smart cities, healthy cities, sustainable cities, urban living and social interaction, culture. The other four partners selected innovative topics such as nanotechnologies, life sciences, music and neuroscience, looking at how innovation could improve the quality of life from an individual point of view more than a social and urban one. The ideas selected respond to one of these topics.
All ideas were at different stages of development. They include prototypes, feasibility studies, new processes and methodologies, products (app, artistic etc.), art works and exhibits/exhibitions. Not many products were created, however the results were very rich and diverse.
The evaluation process was done together by the artist, project group and partners process-leaders. Alongside the collaborative group which conceptualized the project, there were also experts and professionals that helped with advice and recommendations, taking into account the technical complexity of the project, value and price of the ideas. In most cases the selection was made by the presentation of pitches to the public, mentors and representatives from the local consortium. Then a jury composed by the member of the local consortium selected the two best ideas. The most important aspects considered for the selection of the winning projects were the following below:
1. Originality and innovation
2. Relevance, project’s ability to solve a problem or respond to a market necessity
3. Impact potential (social, cultural, economic, artistic …)
4. Susceptibility to be developed as a business
5. Project presentation
As mentioned before 18 Adult ideas were submitted for the European KiiCS Award on Art and Science. For more information on the winners see section below on the Award.
There was also a strong activity of dissemination of the results and methods of the incubation actions, in particular through three open training workshops that were organised by partners.
The Open Training Workshops were mainly implemented from May to November 2014. In total around 115 people attended the three Open Training Workshops. The targets were professionals from the field of art, science or science communication and innovation. The workshops gave the opportunity to present the methodologies and ideas incubated to people interested in developing similar initiatives. Interactive formats were used as much as possible.
Partners identified and agreed on 3 international events where the training sessions were organised. The 9 partners responsible for the incubation actions established 3 groups of 3 partners each that implemented joint training sessions on incubation models based on what they learnt from the project.Each group of 3 partners developed one training session (min. 30 participants) at one of the three different events in the months following the end of the incubation actions.
The open training workshops were a positive tool to promote the experience of the incubation activities. In some cases the time given for a workshop by the organizers was quite short. Maybe one hour more could be useful to share new experiences and to open a conversation. The idea to include the open training workshops in a bigger event as the Festival and Conferences where the workshops took place was a good opportunity to present them in a very positive environment. Participants learned about innovation incubation process (tools, stakeholders, milestones) and aspects of making incubation attractive to youth. They discussed the topic in groups and later on networked with KiiCS partners about further possibilities for collaboration. Besides this, participants got a better understanding of the KiiCS project. The majority of attendees had not heard about KiiCS before, and thus the OTWs were an important event in terms of dissemination.
Another important result of the OTWs were the links created between the speakers and the organizers of the three events that hosted the workshop. Organizers were pleased with how the sessions were conducted and showed their interest in the project too.
The Makers & Hackers group (Copernicus Science Centre, IDIS, UPF) presented their workshop at the Ecsite Annual Conference 2014 in The Hague. The launch of the Open Training Workshops took place in the Makerspace of the Conference. In this workshop there was also the participation of Science Gallery who presented the draft of the toolkit. The 2014 EBN Congress in Lleida hosted another open training workshop: the one themed on « Cities of the Future », with the involvement of the Cities of the Future group (CCSTI Grenoble, Arts Catalyst, TILLT ). The last event took place in Austria, in the city of Linz during the Arts and Electronic Festival with the involvement of the Life Science cluster (composed by Waag Society, Science Gallery, Kapelica Gallery).
Ecsite is leading WP3, targeted at young adults (14-17 years old) through the development of 6 pan- European collaborative processes between 9 science centres and museums (Ecsite Third Parties) and 9 consortium incubator partners. The aim is to stimulate young adults’ interest in science, and to empower them with scientific, technical and creative skills. Each of the 18 young adults incubators (9 Partners and 9 Ecsite Third Parties) established a specific local partnership to build their activities on, stated their thematic interests and exchanged together through online communication and an on-site workshop to cluster in 6 European partnerships, each of them constituted of a 3 incubators:
• The Urbanauts are constituted of the Arts Catalyst (UK), Copernicus Science Centre (Poland) and TILLT (Sweden), and focuses on contemporary urban challenges.
• The Brain cluster comprises University Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Discovery Centre Continium (Netherlands) and Exploratório - Centro Ciência Viva – Coimbra, and deals with brain perceptions and interfaces.
• The Bio-KiiCS cluster is constituted of Science Gallery (Ireland), Kapelica Gallery (Slovenia) and Waag Society (Netherlands), and is themed around biology and life sciences and maintains a focus on the concepts of Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-Together biology.
• The B-Linked cluster comprises Experimentarium (Denmark), Technopolis (Belgium) and TRACES - ESPGG (France), and is tackling science topics through artistic means, with an aim of building new bridges between young adults and between different disciplines.
• The Fashionable cluster is made of CCSTI Grenoble – La Casemate (France), MUSE – Museo delle Scienze (Italy) and Techmania Science Centre (Czech Republic) and deals with linking fashion with science and technology.
• The cluster Sea Cities is constituted of Domus (Spain), Fundação da Juventude (Portugal) and Città della Scienza (Italy) and focuses on Smart and Healthy Cities, with an emphasis on tourism, mobility and culture.
Each of these clusters started activities engaging young adults in science, technology, art and the creative sectors as well as in the business and innovation sector in a cross-disciplinary way, fostering co-creation and collaborative processes. Within each cluster, experts and young adults exchange expertise, results and feedback at European level through teleconferences, social media and online communication, linking the young adults with their European peers.
In total almost 3 500 (twice more than foreseen) young adults aged 14-18 years old were involved throughout Europe. On average in most of the institutions gender split was very balanced. With girls being equally (if not more in some case, for example in the Fashion cluster) engaged as boys.
The total of 107 various workshops and actions were organised for Young Adults throughout the whole of the KiiCS project. The activities were organised per different clusters. The Urbanautus cluster (Copernicus, Arts Catalyst, TILLT) has focused on contemporary urban challenged. In total within both reporting period they organised 17 different workshops including an exhibition. The Brain Cluster( UPF, Exploratorio, Continium) has addressed the topic of brain perceptions and interface. In total the clusted hard organised 14 activities, including workshops, seminars and public events. The bio-KiiCS cluster (Science gallery, Waag Society, Kapelica) focused on the theme around biology and life sciences. 17 activities were organised within WP2 including mentoring programmes, fairs, workshops. The b-linked cluser (TRACES, Technopolis, Experimentarium) tackled science topics through artistic means. They organised workshops and public events with the total 19 activities within both reporting periods. The Fashionable cluster’s (MUSE, CCSTI, Techmania) main theme was fashion. They have organised various events including workshops, competitions, public events with the total number of 22. The Sea Cities cluster addressed the topic of Smart and Health Cities (Domus, Fundação da Juventude, IDIS). In total they organised 18 events during KiiCS, these were mostly workshops, but also competitions and weekly working sessions.
Task 3.3 on Selection of innovative ideas from young adults has started and was fully achieved during this second reporting period. In order to select ideas for the KiiCS awards, partners decided on a list of criteria that could differ from one cluster to another. The main criteria included innovation, usability, or presentation. 6 ideas were selected for the European KiiCS award. Each cluster had an internal selection process and they all nominated one idea. The winner was announced at the European KiiCS Award. Within most of the clusters, all partners worked together in order to choose an international jury that could be constituted by scientists, artists, innovators, and educators. The selection would then be made at two levels. The first level would be the local selection of one or several projects per partner. The second would involve the international jury, which would be responsible for the selection of the cluster’s best idea within the pre-selected ideas. Within some clusters also the young people had to vote for the ideas of other clusters
The Youth Advisory Board (YAB) is body created within the KiiCS project whose role was was to advise on the course of the project, participate in the selection of Ideas coming from the Young Adults and in the dissemination of the project. In July 2014 the YAB has been fully recruited with one representative coming from each of the partners. The YAB of the KiiCS project was composed of a group of 11 young people aged 14-21 coming from 9 different countries. After each partner had selected a YAB member from their country, their first get-together was through a teleconference. Organised by Ecsite, the teleconference was aimed at getting to know each other, introducing the role and tasks of the YAB and prepare them for their upcoming European event. The teleconference took place on 9th September 2014.
The YAB attended one European event – it was the EUCYS 2014 contest in Warsaw, Poland. KiiCS had its own stand and was part of the public zone of EUCYS. The stand was operated by the YAB, where they presented the activities they did during KiiCS in their home countries. The YAB team was divided into two teams. While one team was operating the stand, the other team was offered a visit to Copernicus Science Centre and could also have some free time to visit the city of Warsaw. One day was also devoted to the Steering Committee meeting which was attended by the YAB. After the meeting, the YAB have actively contributed to KiiCS social media and also each of them has presented KiiCS at one local event.
At the end of the KiiCS project, a European competition was set up in order to award the most innovative arts & science ideas stemming from the incubation processes tested by the partners, under the coordination and supervision of KEA.
The KiiCS Awards for Art & Science aimed at:
- Promoting innovative and creative thinking;
- Enhancing the conceptualisation and implementation of new forms of economic and social innovation, both technological and non-technological, which could be translated into new products, services, designs, projects, art works, working processes or business activities;
- Making policy makers aware of the importance of art, science and creativity as a tool to stimulate innovation improving competitiveness and quality of life in Europe.
Two Award categories were set up, one for Adults and one for Young Adults. Under each category, KiiCS rewarded the best innovative idea stemming from the incubation actions experimented by the KiiCS’ partners during this three-year project.
Arts&science incubation activities for adults were organised by KiiCS’ partners, each one working on a different theme (9 in total). Two ideas by partner were selected to take part to the European competition to get the KiiCS Award in the Adults Section. The two nominees were chosen by local juries based on a number of criteria which were developed on the basis of the European criteria.
As for young adults, KiiCS’ partners worked in six different groups/clusters (Brain Cluster, Bio-KiiCS, Sea Cities, Urbanauts, Fashionable and B-linked). One idea per cluster was pre-selected to take part to the European competition to get the KiiCS Award. Again, each nominee was chosen by a cluster jury based on criteria developed on the basis of European criteria.
The European KiiCS Award on arts and science for innovation went to “Lab Easy: DIY Biology for the Bio-Curious” – a new concept of lab designed to learn about life sciences “by doing” and developed as part of the arts&science activities run by Arts Catalyst (UK). It obtained a final score of 15.95 (out of 20) with an average score of 4 (out of 5) under the originality criterion, an average of 3.5 under the innovation criteria, 4 on the ability to solve a problem or answer a social/market need, 4.25 under the development potential criterion and 4.5 under the motivation criteria.
The Special Mention in the Adults Section went to “DA4GA / Living Mirror”, a mirror detecting faces or images based on magnetic bacteria and developed as part of Waag Society’s arts&science incubation actions (NL).
The European Youth KiiCS Award on arts and science went to “Slave for Love” by 5hek team (from Kapelica, Ljubljana – member of the Bio-KiiCS cluster) who received a final score of 16.35 (out of 20) with an average of 4.5 out of 5 under the originality criterion, 3.5 under the innovation criterion, 3.25 to the ability to solve a problem or answer a social/market need, 2.5 under the development potential criterion and 4 under the motivation criterion.
The winners were unveiled during the Award Ceremony that took place in Amsterdam as part of the Discovery Festival. The Ceremony was organised by Waag Society under the constant supervision of KEA and ECSITE. The event was also an occasion to offer a preview of the KiiCS promo.
The Ceremony took place on 26th of September 2014 as part of the 9th edition of the Discovery Festival. This creative science festival is hosted by THT, a recently renovated building located in Amsterdam-Noord, an abandoned urban area that is gradually turning into a vibrant creative quarter. Around 50 people took part in the Ceremony (among which nine out of eighteen Adult nominees, the six nominees in the Young Adults section; two members of the Jury and arts & science practitioners). The event was moderated by Martijn van Calmthout, a very well-known Dutch science journalist.
Potential Impact:
In the last months of the project a lot of effort was also made on disseminating the project outcomes. The project’s main results (namely the most innovative ideas resulting from the incubation actions obtaining the award and the incubation guide but also the videos showing what arts & science incubation may look like) were actively disseminated at more than ten international events and around thirty local events. It is estimated that KiiCS reached 5,000 people directly (incubation activities for both adults and young people ) and about 500,000 indirectly (communication about KiiCS ).
Through the whole project The European communication tools (Website, Facebook page, Twitter account, Google+, YouTube Channel as well as European press releases and e-newsletters) were managed and updated by KEA. In addition, KEA together with Ecsite and Waag have actively contributed to the organisation of the KiiCS’ Award Ceremony in Amsterdam. Partners have actively contributed to the implementation of the communication strategy via their local activities and communication channels (including both traditional and online media channels).
KiiCS has contributed to raise awareness on the mutual influence of arts and science for innovation by extensively communicating about the project to different targeted audiences (the Cultural/Creative, Scientific and Education communities, the Young, Policy Makers, the General Public and to a lesser extent, the Business World), as it can be seen from the variety of events to which KiiCS was presented (see last section of this WP4 report). All partners contributed to an active dissemination strategy, including communication and dissemination actions at different levels targeting diverse audiences. Attention has been in particular drawn towards the main outcomes of the incubation activities, namely most innovative ideas resulting from the incubation actions obtaining the award and the incubation guide.
During the second phase of WP4, some additional promotional material was produced, such as three short videos retracing the objectives and achievements of the KiiCS project and respectively showcasing the overall project, young adults’ activities and adults’ activities. This product has been widely shared on the KiiCS’ website, on social media as well as at local and European events and at the Award Ceremony.
The KiiCS’ promo video was also promoted through the Arte Creative platform (http://creative.arte.tv/fr/users/kiics). In January 2015 KiiCS has indeed been accepted to join the network of creative people set up by the European broadcasting channel.
Arte Creative platform was chosen to stand for the European broadcaster described in Task 2 of WP4, according to which KEA is responsible for approaching a European TV broadcaster to show films. This platform is dedicated to contemporary culture and has an online magazine and project lab. Branding itself as “curious and open-minded”, it aims at promoting emerging talents in the world who are willing to share and enrich artistic practices through the interaction with other members of the community. This way it is in line with the spirit of experimentation and creative innovation that lies at the heart of the KiiCS project.
In 15 months (October 2013 to January 2015), the KiiCS website (www.kiics.eu) attracted 6,192 users (new or returning visitors) totalising 38,377 page views and registering an average visit duration of 3.19 min. This means web visitors usually opened on average 4.18 pages per visit and stayed on the website enough time to read at least one article or the main description of the project.
European newsletters helped to “tell” the story of the project, from the development of the arts and science incubation activities to its final recommendations. Within the reporting period 6 e-newsletters were produced. Newsletters were sent through the KiiCS’ website and the KEA’s mailing list. They were also widely disseminated on social media (as shown below on Twitter).
As part of its last newsletter, KiiCS has produced key learnings from the project, remaining challenges and policy recommendations.
At the European level, it is estimated that more than 10,000 people between individuals, organisations and institutions across Europe have been informed by the project:
- ECSITE forwarded information on the project, press releases and e-newsletters throughout its network of 400 members and its newsletter which counts about 6,000 contacts. Information about the project was relayed on ECSITE’s website which receives 60,000 unique visitors a year.
- EBN disseminated information to 240 members, including the 155 local Business Innovation Centres and 75 associate members in the 28 EU Member states.
- KEA European Affairs communicated about the project to a large network of 3,500 contacts within the creative and cultural sectors as well as EU, national and local policy levels across Europe.
At the local level, it is estimated that partners have reached and informed nearly 500,000 persons about the incubation actions.
KiiCS was widely promoted at different events to reach out different stakeholders across Europe.
The KiiCS project has been presented to European policy makers but also peer institutions (mainly science and arts organisations) at more than ten events in Brussels and beyond, amongst which:
- ECSITE Annual Conference, June 2013, Gothenburg;
- ERRIN Design & Creativity Working Group, 6 March 2014, with M. VANDERHAEGEN, programme manager Culture programme (DG EAC);
- DG ENTR Workshop “Boosting creative economy in the EU”, 13 May 2014, with Jean-François Aguinaga (DG ENTR), Pedro Oport (DG ENTR), Catherine Magnant (DG EAC), Dorota Nigge (DG EAC);
- EBN Congress, 25-26-27 June 2014, Lleida (Spain);
- Open Training Workshop @ Ars Electronica, 6 September 2014, Linz;
- European Design Days, 25 September 2014, Brussels;
- 12th EU Open Days – presentation of KiiCS as part of a session on “Designing the city policies to stimulate cross-innovation and spill-overs”, 7 October 2014, Brussels;
- Building effective creative clusters conference, 25 November 2014, Munich.
- ECSITE Annual Conference, May 2014, The Hague.
The SIS-RRI CONFERENCE: SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND SOCIETY – ACHIEVING RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH AND INNOVATION (http://www.sis-rri-conference.eu/) took place in Rome on 19-21 November 2014 as part of the Italian Presidency’s semester. The exhibition “Science Art Society” was running alongside it for two weeks at the MAXXI, a well-established contemporary art museum in Rome. The organisers invited KiiCS to participate in the exhibition and showcase some of the artworks which got created as a result of the KiiCS project.
KiiCS partners and Third Parties were consulted and 7 artworks got selected for the exhibition. Ecsite coordinated the KiiCS part of the exhibition and facilitated the liaison between the organisers and the partners
KiiCS was also introduced to local policy makers, arts and science organisations, schools/educational institutes and young people across Europe. Partners indeed contributed to promote the project and disseminate its results by presenting it at different local events (from museum nights to science festivals such as Experimenta in Grenoble to Maker Faires in Dublin and Rome) as well as by organising/taking part to information sessions with policy makers.
5 key messages came out of the external evaluation report confirming that KiiCS has successfully reached all its objectives:
KiiCS successfully reached its core objectives
1. KiiCS effectively attracted and facilitated new collaborations between people from different backgrounds, especially art and science.
2. KiiCS successfully stimulated the development of a large number of project concepts which led to 24 innovative ideas being entered into an award competition from which the winners were selected by external experts.
3. KiiCS was successful in raising awareness of the value of interactions between science and technology and the arts and creative fields in a wide range of stakeholder groups.
4. KiiCS successfully developed a method for developing projects across the arts/science frontier and the partners disseminated this methodology effectively.
5. Using the KiiCS approach and methods has had a moderate and beneficial effect on the partners in respect of stimulating them to do new things such as build more diverse teams, bring in new expertise and focus on the arts/science linkages with a new intensity. In a few cases KiiCS has had more significant impacts on the mission and future objectives of the partner institutions.
The main dissemination activities are listed in template A2, for a full list of Dissemination Activities please consult Period reports 1 and 2.
List of Websites:
www.kiics.eu
KiiCS (Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science) was a three-year project, coordinated by Ecsite, the European Network of Science Centres and Museums, that attempted to dissolve the lines between creativity, science, technology and business to explore new solutions in the spirit of co-creation. It showed the positive and mutual influence of science, technology and the creative sector to support innovation through concrete actions. The project supported the setting up of innovation processes that associated scientific and creative skills with a view:
• to give evidence of the positive impact of this interaction on innovation and creativity;
• to integrate different disciplines to stimulate new forms of collaboration;
• to encourage young people to engage in scientific activities;
• to support entrepreneurship and business development.
Artists and scientists think alike: they tend to approach "life” with a similar open-mindedness, curiosity and trials. KiiCS enhanced such a similar way of thinking by testing incubation art&science modules (9 aimed at adults + 6 aimed at young people) that attracted more than 5000 participants across Europe, amongst which artists, creative professionals and scientists but also citizens and "creativity passionates”.
KiiCS ultimately resulted in:
• 24 innovative ideas stemming from arts & science collaboration.
• Raising novel skills (creativity, team building, …)
• Setting up new multidisciplinary and collaborative working spaces
• Strengthened partnerships with the local stakeholders (from the arts, science, education and business communities to the local governments)
• The experimentation of bottom-up processes to better engage with citizens or students and make art & science relevant to the local community
• Different themes explored within existing initiatives and organisations (music and neuroscience, urban development, mobility, tourism, sustainable fashion..)
• Upcoming multidisciplinary courses in local schools
• A Guide on how to carry out Art & Science Incubation actions available in 7 languages
Not only the KiiCS project has engaged with thousands of Europeans to experiment with art and science, it also developed novel formats and methodologies to link the two fields and produce incubators. A Guide on how to carry out Art & Science Incubation actions was disseminated to many professionals and actors in the field. It was presented in 3 Open Training Workshops at various high-level European events such as Ars Electronica Festival or The Ecsite Annual Conference.
Finally, as part of its last newsletter, KiiCS has produced key learnings from the project, remaining challenges and policy recommendations.
KiiCS promotion videos: http://www.kiics.eu/en/Videos-Publications/KiiCS-Promo-Videos/KiiCS-Promo-Videos/
Project Context and Objectives:
The economy is increasingly innovation-led and creativity has become a key competitiveness indicator. Business in general and ICT in particular rely more and more on creative content to make their products and services more attractive. Research is required to be more effective, accountable and result-oriented. Its outcomes should be better communicated and exploited to make science closer to society and improve quality of life.
Science and the arts can help answer such a quest for innovative approaches to the economy and society. They both rely on creative processes based on experiments, trials and failures; they both make use of imagination and critical thinking; both are provocative and risk-taking; both use an explorative approach to research and creation.
Art and science incubation brings together complementary skills and expertise to develop and test new ideas in an interactive and experimental fashion, thus:
• Introducing scientists to new social environments where they can share their research with non-scientific people. It enhances the "social responsibility” of science end encourages active debates on the links between science, society and ethics. Artists convey messages on the social and ethical impacts of science in new and attractive ways.
• Contributing to scientific culture, research and careers by promoting and highlighting the creative character of science and its practical implications. Art and science incubation encourages multidisciplinary work to get more innovation out of scientific research.
• Stimulating new forms of economic and social innovation by enhancing non-technological and user-driven approaches to new products, services or processes. Art and science incubation offers potential solutions to improve quality of life.
KiiCS (Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science) is a 3-year European Commission-funded project (February 2012 – January 2015) aiming to:
• Develop and explore original and innovative processes, methods and tools to "incubate” arts, science and technology. Artists and scientists are brought together to produce and work on new, innovative ideas thus providing evidence of the positive impact of art and science interaction on creativity and innovation.
• Encourage young people to engage in scientific activities and raise their interest in science and technology. Young adults (14-17 years old) are invited to discover new ways to look at science with the support of creative and artistic interventions.
• Explore business partnership and market potential for the most innovative ideas stemming from art and science interaction. These are presented to businesses and potential investors to offer them a business development opportunity.
KiiCS’ ultimate goal is to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking: participants are encouraged to work together across sectors’ boundaries to stimulate new forms of creativity and socioeconomic innovation.
KiiCS supported the development of innovation incubation modules in 9 European cities associating science and technology with the creative sectors. From these incubation modules 18 innovative ideas and projects were selected to compete for KiiCS awards. With a view to engage young adults in the project and devise methods to inspire scientific careers, 9 science/education centres (as Ecsite Third Parties) were linked to 9 consortium incubator partners to develop collaboration processes involving science, technology and creative sectors with the participation of young adults (14-17 years old). This lead to 6 concrete collaborative European partnerships generating 6 innovative ideas.
KiiCS is a unique project. Its originality lies in getting scientists and creative people in the same physical place in order to stimulate interactions between different disciplines and sectors in a process of mutual learning across Europe.
KiiCS activities are divided into different phases
I/ Research on incubation: February – August 2012
The first phase of the project helped identify existing processes in Europe and beyond to incubate creative and innovative ideas stemming from the interaction between the creative sectors and science.
The results were disseminated internally first to inspire the set of local actions, and will be disseminated later on a European level through the "Art & Science Incubation Guide".
II/ Adult incubation: September 2012 – June 2014
The second phase started with the European joint launch of incubation modules for adults: the 9 "Incubator Partners" established, with the help of stakeholders, 9 incubation modules throughout Europe around a large variety of themes like "smart cities", "life sciences", "sustainable energy and transport" or "music and neuroscience". Each Incubator Partner chose a specific way for implementing incubation actions: laboratories, workshops, lectures, exhibitions, artists’ residencies, etc. Incubation Partners were supported by Local Networks of representative stakeholders from the local scientific, artistic, business and policy communities.
From these incubation modules, 18 innovative ideas/projects/processes have been identified and selected to compete for the European KiiCS Award.
III/ Young adults incubation: December 2012 – June 2014
The third phase started with the European joint launch of the collaborative processes for young adults: the 9 "Third Parties" worked jointly with the 9 "Incubator Partners" to develop multidisciplinary collaborative processes targeting young adults: workshops, lab sessions, interactive exhibits, activities in schools or performances, etc. A Youth Advisory Board, composed of 9 young adults, contributed to the activities and dissemination of the project among young people. Each incubator partner proposed a member of the Youth Advisory Board.
From these incubation actions, 6 innovative ideas/projects/processes have been identified and selected to compete for the KiiCS Youth Award.
IV/ Dissemination of results and achievements: July 2014 – January 2015
At the end of the project, numerous communication actions were foreseen, including the KiiCS Awards Ceremony to award the best adult and youth ideas developed.
Project Results:
Science Gallery is the WP1 leader for the KiiCS project and is responsible for researching and collating input to complete the exploration and assessment of existing incubation actions and the production of the incubation Do-It-Yourself Toolkit. Throughout the first period of the project, Science Gallery has worked together with Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
and Fondazione IDIS – Città della Scienza (Idis) with input from KiiCS consortium members to carry out the main activities of WP1 - to research the state of the art on incubation activities for both adults and young adults in arts, science and innovation. This involved extensive data collection and review with the aim of facilitating peer learning within the KiiCS consortium. This activity resulted in the identification of existing processes and platforms in Europe that incubate creative and innovative ideas and processes emerging from the interaction between the creative sectors and science. Science Gallery summarised these processes and platforms in the report Incubator State of the Arts: Preliminary report on incubators processes from desk research and collections of experiences. This report focused on incubation models geared towards adults and highlighted case studies from the KiiCS consortium partners and other relevant European organisations. The case studies were carried out by Science Gallery together with UPF, and Idis participated in the establishment of recommendations for future incubators. A second report, Incubators for Young Adults: Preliminary report on incubators processes from desk research and collections of experiences, dealt with incubation activities geared towards young adults. The specificity of the subject area warranted a broader remit the report on Adults and looked at incubation projects in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia.
In the second period of the project both of these reports, along with the results of the KiiCS project, were integrated into the development of the final deliverable - DIY Incubation Kit.
The Art and Science Incubation Toolkit was the third and final deliverable (D1.3) for Work Package 1 of the KiiCS project. The toolkit is a free tool that can be used to promote and develop incubation processes between science, art and creative fields, to offer advice gained from experiences throughout the KiiCS project, and to provide recommendations so that any user of the kit will be able to establish their own incubation activities.
From M27-31, Science Gallery collated and consolidated the learnings from all the KiiCS partners gained though the development of their incubation activities, drafted and designed the kit with in-house Science Gallery designer and printed them. The kit was also made available to download as PDF online on the KiiCS website, and was translated by partners into 7 languages.
A particular challenge was translation and trying to omit the use of prescription language in the toolkit itself. The toolkit’s aim was to be used by anyone, of any age but particularly young adults, interested in creating their own incubation activities and it did achieve this but only through a conscious effort of translating the wording into something more accessible for the public. Hence the title of the toolkit was changed to ‘Guide to Incubating Innovation in Art and Science’.
The Guide is available on the KiiCS website. The resource is also available on the Ecsite website. The hard copy of the toolkit was distributed to Ecsite’s 400 members and also all of KiiCS partners.
In WP2 which focuses on Adult Incubators, through a bottom-up approach, partners have developed and incubation modules within 9 cities (Naples, Barcelona, Grenoble, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Warsaw, and Ljubljana) after a European joint launch in September 2012 in Naples. The 9 "Incubator Partners” have established 9 incubation modules throughout Europe around a large variety of themes like "smart cities”, “sustainable development”, “digital prototyping”, "life sciences” or “musical creativity and neuroscience”, responding to the different local needs and the different enterprise fertilization strategies designed by the partners that could stimulate a high, innovative and transversal cultural profile of the incubation processes.
Incubation Partners were supported by Local Networks of representative stakeholders from the local scientific, artistic and policy communities, created during the first step of WP2. There are more than 40 bodies and institutions taking part in 9 different local consortiums, with various levels/typologies of partnership agreement. The incubation modules developed are actions and experimental approaches aimed at stimulating the production of new enterprise ideas (e.g. a products, a service, a process), or at enhancing people’s skills (e.g. artists in residence increasing workers’ motivation, scientist empowering artists with concepts and tools, or artists stimulating young adults’ willingness to study science) stemming from the interaction between the creative sectors and science. It is possible to distinguish two main categories: the incubation activities led by the process and those that are led by the outcome, with an effective mutual contamination. The first ones aim to involve scientists, artists and entrepreneurs in processes where arts, sciences, innovation and creativity are mixed together creating new environments or ways of innovative thinking. The second ones aim to produce concrete products: exhibitions, business ideas, enterprises, workshops and prototypes.
The European collaboration has been the main pillar to develop a common methodology for the incubation processes through a set of joint parameters for all partners to implement the actions and the work plans. The implementation of the nine incubation activities in partnership with local stakeholders has started fulfilling the established objectives. The task 1 (establishment of the city partnerships) and task 2 (elaboration of workplans and methodology) gave the project a strong structure to create a better condition for the implementation in the task 3 of the specific actions. Every incubation action included professional artist interacting with at least one scientist/researcher/business/technical professional to work creatively on solving issues relevant for each organization. The results of the incubation actions in a lot of cases had a strong and positive engagement with the local community of the cities involved. They also resulted in the generation of 18 innovative ideas that were submitted to the European KiiCs Award for Art and Science.
The second period of activities was very important for the implementation of the incubation actions and to reinforce the business attitude of the ideas selected. In some cases these activities arrived to the implementation of a business plan.
With the support of KiiCS, spaces and locations were created for the day to day contamination of art, science and innovation. In a lot of cases these spaces were created in a dedicated area of the partner’s building as for the Smart Lab Incubator in Naples or The Urban Lab Adult in Dublin or the BioTehna laboratory in Ljubiana. Many activities were hosted in public spaces and in very relevant Municipality’s locations. There was also an important integration of these spaces with the local FabLab as in Naples, Barcelona, Grenoble, Warsaw, Gothenburg.
There were a lot of relevant results, innovative ideas have been made, pre-incubation, mentoring and selection of startups have been implemented, events for a wider public have been organised.
The incubation actions show an innovative potential of interdisciplinary collaborations. Participants were recruited from different backgrounds (art/ creative/ science/ technology/ entrepreneurship). The mentors would also be from different backgrounds. While working in mixed groups the participants reached new creative potential and opened to future cross-discipline collaborations. The experts and professionals were a part of a creative process they helped the participants to open their minds to new possibilities of implementing science and technology in their development processes.
In workshops and events carried out the target audience responded positively to the subject matter and engaged with the theme through a variety of processes e.g. workshops, ideation bootcamps.
The methodology used to develop the most part of the incubation actions consisted in setting up an opening date for the call for proposals, announcing as well the closing date of the public call. Once the projects had been received, a jury was formed and the selection process began. After the selection the proposers of the ideas had the possibility to start to work. From this point there was quite a diversity of approaches of each partner so we have the following different activities:
- 15% Artist in residence (Art Catalyst,Kalepica)
Creative artistic processes in residences, involving artists and scientists, exploring new ways of collaboration in this field.
- 20% Creative innovation processes (UPF, Copernicus)
Focused on improving innovation capacity and entrepreneurial climate by having artistic competence stimulate creative and innovative thinking, as tools to develop the local innovation culture, attracting stakeholders.
- 20% Creative co-design processes (Waag,TILLT)
Open calls open to all citizens: artists and creators, entrepreneurs, researchers and engineers as well as people working in NGOs to select participants on a basis of a strong motivation.
- 15% Design-thinking (TILLT,Science Gallery)
improving innovation capacity and entrepreneurial climate by having artistic competence stimulate creative and innovative thinking, as tools to develop the local innovation culture, attracting stakeholders and attentions.
- 10% Creative workshops (IDIS, Le Casemate)
Realization of pilot workshops used to design the incubation model and to define the innovative ideas
- 15% Visualization (Science Gallery)
Drawing exploration through methods of abstraction, sketching, notation, and rapid visualization.
- 5% Other activities (IDIS, Waag)
Prototyping – rudimentary materialization of ideas to help with their further development –also using 3D printers
Overall about 1500 Europeans were involved in the core activities of the project in the different cities. Another 1000 participated at least in one event, workshop or labs and there was a very strong dissemination on the websites, through the social media and the official pages of the partners. There was a quite equal participation of women and men. Regarding the age of the participants, the average is between 25 and 40 years old. In the overall project we had people from 15 to 70 years old involved.
The activities of the Second Period generated a rich variety of ideas. All the ideas had enough time to be structured. Five partners have selected city topics in different aspects such as smart cities, healthy cities, sustainable cities, urban living and social interaction, culture. The other four partners selected innovative topics such as nanotechnologies, life sciences, music and neuroscience, looking at how innovation could improve the quality of life from an individual point of view more than a social and urban one. The ideas selected respond to one of these topics.
All ideas were at different stages of development. They include prototypes, feasibility studies, new processes and methodologies, products (app, artistic etc.), art works and exhibits/exhibitions. Not many products were created, however the results were very rich and diverse.
The evaluation process was done together by the artist, project group and partners process-leaders. Alongside the collaborative group which conceptualized the project, there were also experts and professionals that helped with advice and recommendations, taking into account the technical complexity of the project, value and price of the ideas. In most cases the selection was made by the presentation of pitches to the public, mentors and representatives from the local consortium. Then a jury composed by the member of the local consortium selected the two best ideas. The most important aspects considered for the selection of the winning projects were the following below:
1. Originality and innovation
2. Relevance, project’s ability to solve a problem or respond to a market necessity
3. Impact potential (social, cultural, economic, artistic …)
4. Susceptibility to be developed as a business
5. Project presentation
As mentioned before 18 Adult ideas were submitted for the European KiiCS Award on Art and Science. For more information on the winners see section below on the Award.
There was also a strong activity of dissemination of the results and methods of the incubation actions, in particular through three open training workshops that were organised by partners.
The Open Training Workshops were mainly implemented from May to November 2014. In total around 115 people attended the three Open Training Workshops. The targets were professionals from the field of art, science or science communication and innovation. The workshops gave the opportunity to present the methodologies and ideas incubated to people interested in developing similar initiatives. Interactive formats were used as much as possible.
Partners identified and agreed on 3 international events where the training sessions were organised. The 9 partners responsible for the incubation actions established 3 groups of 3 partners each that implemented joint training sessions on incubation models based on what they learnt from the project.Each group of 3 partners developed one training session (min. 30 participants) at one of the three different events in the months following the end of the incubation actions.
The open training workshops were a positive tool to promote the experience of the incubation activities. In some cases the time given for a workshop by the organizers was quite short. Maybe one hour more could be useful to share new experiences and to open a conversation. The idea to include the open training workshops in a bigger event as the Festival and Conferences where the workshops took place was a good opportunity to present them in a very positive environment. Participants learned about innovation incubation process (tools, stakeholders, milestones) and aspects of making incubation attractive to youth. They discussed the topic in groups and later on networked with KiiCS partners about further possibilities for collaboration. Besides this, participants got a better understanding of the KiiCS project. The majority of attendees had not heard about KiiCS before, and thus the OTWs were an important event in terms of dissemination.
Another important result of the OTWs were the links created between the speakers and the organizers of the three events that hosted the workshop. Organizers were pleased with how the sessions were conducted and showed their interest in the project too.
The Makers & Hackers group (Copernicus Science Centre, IDIS, UPF) presented their workshop at the Ecsite Annual Conference 2014 in The Hague. The launch of the Open Training Workshops took place in the Makerspace of the Conference. In this workshop there was also the participation of Science Gallery who presented the draft of the toolkit. The 2014 EBN Congress in Lleida hosted another open training workshop: the one themed on « Cities of the Future », with the involvement of the Cities of the Future group (CCSTI Grenoble, Arts Catalyst, TILLT ). The last event took place in Austria, in the city of Linz during the Arts and Electronic Festival with the involvement of the Life Science cluster (composed by Waag Society, Science Gallery, Kapelica Gallery).
Ecsite is leading WP3, targeted at young adults (14-17 years old) through the development of 6 pan- European collaborative processes between 9 science centres and museums (Ecsite Third Parties) and 9 consortium incubator partners. The aim is to stimulate young adults’ interest in science, and to empower them with scientific, technical and creative skills. Each of the 18 young adults incubators (9 Partners and 9 Ecsite Third Parties) established a specific local partnership to build their activities on, stated their thematic interests and exchanged together through online communication and an on-site workshop to cluster in 6 European partnerships, each of them constituted of a 3 incubators:
• The Urbanauts are constituted of the Arts Catalyst (UK), Copernicus Science Centre (Poland) and TILLT (Sweden), and focuses on contemporary urban challenges.
• The Brain cluster comprises University Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Discovery Centre Continium (Netherlands) and Exploratório - Centro Ciência Viva – Coimbra, and deals with brain perceptions and interfaces.
• The Bio-KiiCS cluster is constituted of Science Gallery (Ireland), Kapelica Gallery (Slovenia) and Waag Society (Netherlands), and is themed around biology and life sciences and maintains a focus on the concepts of Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-Together biology.
• The B-Linked cluster comprises Experimentarium (Denmark), Technopolis (Belgium) and TRACES - ESPGG (France), and is tackling science topics through artistic means, with an aim of building new bridges between young adults and between different disciplines.
• The Fashionable cluster is made of CCSTI Grenoble – La Casemate (France), MUSE – Museo delle Scienze (Italy) and Techmania Science Centre (Czech Republic) and deals with linking fashion with science and technology.
• The cluster Sea Cities is constituted of Domus (Spain), Fundação da Juventude (Portugal) and Città della Scienza (Italy) and focuses on Smart and Healthy Cities, with an emphasis on tourism, mobility and culture.
Each of these clusters started activities engaging young adults in science, technology, art and the creative sectors as well as in the business and innovation sector in a cross-disciplinary way, fostering co-creation and collaborative processes. Within each cluster, experts and young adults exchange expertise, results and feedback at European level through teleconferences, social media and online communication, linking the young adults with their European peers.
In total almost 3 500 (twice more than foreseen) young adults aged 14-18 years old were involved throughout Europe. On average in most of the institutions gender split was very balanced. With girls being equally (if not more in some case, for example in the Fashion cluster) engaged as boys.
The total of 107 various workshops and actions were organised for Young Adults throughout the whole of the KiiCS project. The activities were organised per different clusters. The Urbanautus cluster (Copernicus, Arts Catalyst, TILLT) has focused on contemporary urban challenged. In total within both reporting period they organised 17 different workshops including an exhibition. The Brain Cluster( UPF, Exploratorio, Continium) has addressed the topic of brain perceptions and interface. In total the clusted hard organised 14 activities, including workshops, seminars and public events. The bio-KiiCS cluster (Science gallery, Waag Society, Kapelica) focused on the theme around biology and life sciences. 17 activities were organised within WP2 including mentoring programmes, fairs, workshops. The b-linked cluser (TRACES, Technopolis, Experimentarium) tackled science topics through artistic means. They organised workshops and public events with the total 19 activities within both reporting periods. The Fashionable cluster’s (MUSE, CCSTI, Techmania) main theme was fashion. They have organised various events including workshops, competitions, public events with the total number of 22. The Sea Cities cluster addressed the topic of Smart and Health Cities (Domus, Fundação da Juventude, IDIS). In total they organised 18 events during KiiCS, these were mostly workshops, but also competitions and weekly working sessions.
Task 3.3 on Selection of innovative ideas from young adults has started and was fully achieved during this second reporting period. In order to select ideas for the KiiCS awards, partners decided on a list of criteria that could differ from one cluster to another. The main criteria included innovation, usability, or presentation. 6 ideas were selected for the European KiiCS award. Each cluster had an internal selection process and they all nominated one idea. The winner was announced at the European KiiCS Award. Within most of the clusters, all partners worked together in order to choose an international jury that could be constituted by scientists, artists, innovators, and educators. The selection would then be made at two levels. The first level would be the local selection of one or several projects per partner. The second would involve the international jury, which would be responsible for the selection of the cluster’s best idea within the pre-selected ideas. Within some clusters also the young people had to vote for the ideas of other clusters
The Youth Advisory Board (YAB) is body created within the KiiCS project whose role was was to advise on the course of the project, participate in the selection of Ideas coming from the Young Adults and in the dissemination of the project. In July 2014 the YAB has been fully recruited with one representative coming from each of the partners. The YAB of the KiiCS project was composed of a group of 11 young people aged 14-21 coming from 9 different countries. After each partner had selected a YAB member from their country, their first get-together was through a teleconference. Organised by Ecsite, the teleconference was aimed at getting to know each other, introducing the role and tasks of the YAB and prepare them for their upcoming European event. The teleconference took place on 9th September 2014.
The YAB attended one European event – it was the EUCYS 2014 contest in Warsaw, Poland. KiiCS had its own stand and was part of the public zone of EUCYS. The stand was operated by the YAB, where they presented the activities they did during KiiCS in their home countries. The YAB team was divided into two teams. While one team was operating the stand, the other team was offered a visit to Copernicus Science Centre and could also have some free time to visit the city of Warsaw. One day was also devoted to the Steering Committee meeting which was attended by the YAB. After the meeting, the YAB have actively contributed to KiiCS social media and also each of them has presented KiiCS at one local event.
At the end of the KiiCS project, a European competition was set up in order to award the most innovative arts & science ideas stemming from the incubation processes tested by the partners, under the coordination and supervision of KEA.
The KiiCS Awards for Art & Science aimed at:
- Promoting innovative and creative thinking;
- Enhancing the conceptualisation and implementation of new forms of economic and social innovation, both technological and non-technological, which could be translated into new products, services, designs, projects, art works, working processes or business activities;
- Making policy makers aware of the importance of art, science and creativity as a tool to stimulate innovation improving competitiveness and quality of life in Europe.
Two Award categories were set up, one for Adults and one for Young Adults. Under each category, KiiCS rewarded the best innovative idea stemming from the incubation actions experimented by the KiiCS’ partners during this three-year project.
Arts&science incubation activities for adults were organised by KiiCS’ partners, each one working on a different theme (9 in total). Two ideas by partner were selected to take part to the European competition to get the KiiCS Award in the Adults Section. The two nominees were chosen by local juries based on a number of criteria which were developed on the basis of the European criteria.
As for young adults, KiiCS’ partners worked in six different groups/clusters (Brain Cluster, Bio-KiiCS, Sea Cities, Urbanauts, Fashionable and B-linked). One idea per cluster was pre-selected to take part to the European competition to get the KiiCS Award. Again, each nominee was chosen by a cluster jury based on criteria developed on the basis of European criteria.
The European KiiCS Award on arts and science for innovation went to “Lab Easy: DIY Biology for the Bio-Curious” – a new concept of lab designed to learn about life sciences “by doing” and developed as part of the arts&science activities run by Arts Catalyst (UK). It obtained a final score of 15.95 (out of 20) with an average score of 4 (out of 5) under the originality criterion, an average of 3.5 under the innovation criteria, 4 on the ability to solve a problem or answer a social/market need, 4.25 under the development potential criterion and 4.5 under the motivation criteria.
The Special Mention in the Adults Section went to “DA4GA / Living Mirror”, a mirror detecting faces or images based on magnetic bacteria and developed as part of Waag Society’s arts&science incubation actions (NL).
The European Youth KiiCS Award on arts and science went to “Slave for Love” by 5hek team (from Kapelica, Ljubljana – member of the Bio-KiiCS cluster) who received a final score of 16.35 (out of 20) with an average of 4.5 out of 5 under the originality criterion, 3.5 under the innovation criterion, 3.25 to the ability to solve a problem or answer a social/market need, 2.5 under the development potential criterion and 4 under the motivation criterion.
The winners were unveiled during the Award Ceremony that took place in Amsterdam as part of the Discovery Festival. The Ceremony was organised by Waag Society under the constant supervision of KEA and ECSITE. The event was also an occasion to offer a preview of the KiiCS promo.
The Ceremony took place on 26th of September 2014 as part of the 9th edition of the Discovery Festival. This creative science festival is hosted by THT, a recently renovated building located in Amsterdam-Noord, an abandoned urban area that is gradually turning into a vibrant creative quarter. Around 50 people took part in the Ceremony (among which nine out of eighteen Adult nominees, the six nominees in the Young Adults section; two members of the Jury and arts & science practitioners). The event was moderated by Martijn van Calmthout, a very well-known Dutch science journalist.
Potential Impact:
In the last months of the project a lot of effort was also made on disseminating the project outcomes. The project’s main results (namely the most innovative ideas resulting from the incubation actions obtaining the award and the incubation guide but also the videos showing what arts & science incubation may look like) were actively disseminated at more than ten international events and around thirty local events. It is estimated that KiiCS reached 5,000 people directly (incubation activities for both adults and young people ) and about 500,000 indirectly (communication about KiiCS ).
Through the whole project The European communication tools (Website, Facebook page, Twitter account, Google+, YouTube Channel as well as European press releases and e-newsletters) were managed and updated by KEA. In addition, KEA together with Ecsite and Waag have actively contributed to the organisation of the KiiCS’ Award Ceremony in Amsterdam. Partners have actively contributed to the implementation of the communication strategy via their local activities and communication channels (including both traditional and online media channels).
KiiCS has contributed to raise awareness on the mutual influence of arts and science for innovation by extensively communicating about the project to different targeted audiences (the Cultural/Creative, Scientific and Education communities, the Young, Policy Makers, the General Public and to a lesser extent, the Business World), as it can be seen from the variety of events to which KiiCS was presented (see last section of this WP4 report). All partners contributed to an active dissemination strategy, including communication and dissemination actions at different levels targeting diverse audiences. Attention has been in particular drawn towards the main outcomes of the incubation activities, namely most innovative ideas resulting from the incubation actions obtaining the award and the incubation guide.
During the second phase of WP4, some additional promotional material was produced, such as three short videos retracing the objectives and achievements of the KiiCS project and respectively showcasing the overall project, young adults’ activities and adults’ activities. This product has been widely shared on the KiiCS’ website, on social media as well as at local and European events and at the Award Ceremony.
The KiiCS’ promo video was also promoted through the Arte Creative platform (http://creative.arte.tv/fr/users/kiics). In January 2015 KiiCS has indeed been accepted to join the network of creative people set up by the European broadcasting channel.
Arte Creative platform was chosen to stand for the European broadcaster described in Task 2 of WP4, according to which KEA is responsible for approaching a European TV broadcaster to show films. This platform is dedicated to contemporary culture and has an online magazine and project lab. Branding itself as “curious and open-minded”, it aims at promoting emerging talents in the world who are willing to share and enrich artistic practices through the interaction with other members of the community. This way it is in line with the spirit of experimentation and creative innovation that lies at the heart of the KiiCS project.
In 15 months (October 2013 to January 2015), the KiiCS website (www.kiics.eu) attracted 6,192 users (new or returning visitors) totalising 38,377 page views and registering an average visit duration of 3.19 min. This means web visitors usually opened on average 4.18 pages per visit and stayed on the website enough time to read at least one article or the main description of the project.
European newsletters helped to “tell” the story of the project, from the development of the arts and science incubation activities to its final recommendations. Within the reporting period 6 e-newsletters were produced. Newsletters were sent through the KiiCS’ website and the KEA’s mailing list. They were also widely disseminated on social media (as shown below on Twitter).
As part of its last newsletter, KiiCS has produced key learnings from the project, remaining challenges and policy recommendations.
At the European level, it is estimated that more than 10,000 people between individuals, organisations and institutions across Europe have been informed by the project:
- ECSITE forwarded information on the project, press releases and e-newsletters throughout its network of 400 members and its newsletter which counts about 6,000 contacts. Information about the project was relayed on ECSITE’s website which receives 60,000 unique visitors a year.
- EBN disseminated information to 240 members, including the 155 local Business Innovation Centres and 75 associate members in the 28 EU Member states.
- KEA European Affairs communicated about the project to a large network of 3,500 contacts within the creative and cultural sectors as well as EU, national and local policy levels across Europe.
At the local level, it is estimated that partners have reached and informed nearly 500,000 persons about the incubation actions.
KiiCS was widely promoted at different events to reach out different stakeholders across Europe.
The KiiCS project has been presented to European policy makers but also peer institutions (mainly science and arts organisations) at more than ten events in Brussels and beyond, amongst which:
- ECSITE Annual Conference, June 2013, Gothenburg;
- ERRIN Design & Creativity Working Group, 6 March 2014, with M. VANDERHAEGEN, programme manager Culture programme (DG EAC);
- DG ENTR Workshop “Boosting creative economy in the EU”, 13 May 2014, with Jean-François Aguinaga (DG ENTR), Pedro Oport (DG ENTR), Catherine Magnant (DG EAC), Dorota Nigge (DG EAC);
- EBN Congress, 25-26-27 June 2014, Lleida (Spain);
- Open Training Workshop @ Ars Electronica, 6 September 2014, Linz;
- European Design Days, 25 September 2014, Brussels;
- 12th EU Open Days – presentation of KiiCS as part of a session on “Designing the city policies to stimulate cross-innovation and spill-overs”, 7 October 2014, Brussels;
- Building effective creative clusters conference, 25 November 2014, Munich.
- ECSITE Annual Conference, May 2014, The Hague.
The SIS-RRI CONFERENCE: SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND SOCIETY – ACHIEVING RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH AND INNOVATION (http://www.sis-rri-conference.eu/) took place in Rome on 19-21 November 2014 as part of the Italian Presidency’s semester. The exhibition “Science Art Society” was running alongside it for two weeks at the MAXXI, a well-established contemporary art museum in Rome. The organisers invited KiiCS to participate in the exhibition and showcase some of the artworks which got created as a result of the KiiCS project.
KiiCS partners and Third Parties were consulted and 7 artworks got selected for the exhibition. Ecsite coordinated the KiiCS part of the exhibition and facilitated the liaison between the organisers and the partners
KiiCS was also introduced to local policy makers, arts and science organisations, schools/educational institutes and young people across Europe. Partners indeed contributed to promote the project and disseminate its results by presenting it at different local events (from museum nights to science festivals such as Experimenta in Grenoble to Maker Faires in Dublin and Rome) as well as by organising/taking part to information sessions with policy makers.
5 key messages came out of the external evaluation report confirming that KiiCS has successfully reached all its objectives:
KiiCS successfully reached its core objectives
1. KiiCS effectively attracted and facilitated new collaborations between people from different backgrounds, especially art and science.
2. KiiCS successfully stimulated the development of a large number of project concepts which led to 24 innovative ideas being entered into an award competition from which the winners were selected by external experts.
3. KiiCS was successful in raising awareness of the value of interactions between science and technology and the arts and creative fields in a wide range of stakeholder groups.
4. KiiCS successfully developed a method for developing projects across the arts/science frontier and the partners disseminated this methodology effectively.
5. Using the KiiCS approach and methods has had a moderate and beneficial effect on the partners in respect of stimulating them to do new things such as build more diverse teams, bring in new expertise and focus on the arts/science linkages with a new intensity. In a few cases KiiCS has had more significant impacts on the mission and future objectives of the partner institutions.
The main dissemination activities are listed in template A2, for a full list of Dissemination Activities please consult Period reports 1 and 2.
List of Websites:
www.kiics.eu