F.I.T. for Future

Project Information

F.I.T. for Future

Grant agreement ID: 633355

DOI

10.3030/633355

Project closed

EC signature date 11 August 2014

Start date 1 May 2014

End date 30 November 2015

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 275 000,00

EU contribution

€ 160 000,00

Coordinated by

Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften St. Pölten GmbH
Austria

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - F.I.T. for Future (F.I.T. for Future)

Reporting period: 2015-01-01 to 2015-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The European Researchers’ Night 2015 provided again exciting and entertaining insights into current research projects at the Aula der Wissenschaften in Vienna. The St. Pölten UAS created a program dealing with the topic “F.I.T. for Future – Research Innovation Technology” at the sole site in Austria. In the German language, the acronym FIT can stand for “Forschung, Innovation and Technology” (“Research, Innovation and Technology”). This special understanding of F.I.T.ness states that research, innovation and technology are the keys to the most important challenges of our society. 2500 people came and informed themselves at experiments, presentations and games for young and old. Topics included among others living, communication, industry and traffic of the future to address the various societal challenges identified in HORIZON 2020. The European Corner as well as other programme points offered information about support from the European Union, projects sponsored by the European Union and research within Europe. The event was also the venue for the final of the European Science Slams.

The broad and varied programme of activities offered was articulated around the following pillars:
Industry 4.0. Corner – experience how the "intelligent factory" should support workers in the future
Mobility for the Future – inform yourself about exciting research projects around the theme "Mobility for the future"
Mobile Corner – test new apps for your digital devices
Smart Living – experience innovative ways of cross-generational living
Science Slam – scientists present their research topics in six minutes
Market place of Science – meet researchers from Lower Austria at eye level
Startup Companies – creative young people from the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences introduce their newly established companies
EU Corner – celebrate ten years of European Researchers' Night
Live Radio Broadcast

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

WP 1 AWARENESS CAMPAIGN
o Conception, realisation of promotional material: posters, of various formats, flyers displayed in schools and kindergartens as well as in different museumls and libraries through the City, , roll ups, programmes, invitations, postcards….:
o Public advertising: city lights, billboards, posters displayed in City streets, as well s in public transport :Digi Lights in Austrian railway stations, inforscreen in main subway, bus and CAT stations;
o Airing of interviews of various researchers and Night coordinator on Campus and city radio stations;
o Sending of invitations to participating organisations, previous attendees, students;
o Mailing through mailing list of PR für Forschung & Bildung( 25.000 addressees);
o Promotion during oither public events such as FFG Forum in Vienna (Austrian Research Promotion Agency) and Podium wissen.vorsprung (Discussion panel in Vienna);
o Publication of 2 press releases prior to the event and 1 post event, displayed to both regional and national media;
o Publication of articles, interviews, announcements, advertising in written press (daily newspapers, free daily, weekly magazines, both local and national);
o Revamping, constant updating and maintenance of project website, namely http://www.fit-for-future.at/ (description of activities, present46 % newcomers on project website druing September, 2.881 users, average of 2,57 page read/visited, 13.980 hits, 1.195 visitors on the day of the event;
o Revamping, constant updating and maintenance of social network profiles (Facebook, TWietter, Flickr…;
o 339 likes, 26.725 reach of Facebook page, 3.539 on Facebook event and 3.972 on Facebook science slam event;
o 33 tweets (16.721 impressions), 249 engagements and 29 retweets on Twitter;
o Over 1.500.000 people made aware of the Researchers' night and its objectives (760.000 city lights analyses of media reach , over 1 million reached through Facebook, radio and web campaign)

WP 2 ACTIVITIES DURING THE NIGHT
o Conception, realisation of promotional material: posters, of various formats, flyers displayed in schools and kindergartens as well as in different museumls and libraries through the City, , roll ups, programmes, invitations, postcards….:
o Public advertising: city lights, billboards, posters displayed in City streets, as well s in public transport :Digi Lights in Austrian railway stations, inforscreen in main subway, bus and CAT stations;
o Airing of interviews of various researchers and Night coordinator on Campus and city radio stations;
o Sending of invitations to participating organisations, previous attendees, students;
o Mailing through mailing list of PR für Forschung & Bildung( 25.000 addressees);
o Promotion during oither public events such as FFG Forum in Vienna (Austrian Research Promotion Agency) and Podium wissen.vorsprung (Discussion panel in Vienna);
o Publication of 2 press releases prior to the event and 1 post event, displayed to both regional and national media;
o Publication of articles, interviews, announcements, advertising in written press (daily newspapers, free daily, weekly magazines, both local and national);
o Revamping, constant updating and maintenance of project website, namely http://www.fit-for-future.at/ (description of activities, present46 % newcomers on project website druing September, 2.881 users, average of 2,57 page read/visited, 13.980 hits, 1.195 visitors on the day of the event;
o Revamping, constant updating and maintenance of social network profiles (Facebook, TWietter, Flickr…;
o 339 likes, 26.725 reach of Facebook page, 3.539 on Facebook event and 3.972 on Facebook science slam event;
o 33 tweets (16.721 impressions), 249 engagements and 29 retweets on Twitter;
o Over 1.500.000 people made aware of the Researchers' night and its objectives (760.000 city lights analyses of media reach , over 1 million reached through Facebook, radio and web campaign)


WP 3 IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Description of the current situation
o EUROBAROMETER 2010 about attitudes towards science;
o Previous impact assessment exercises in the framework of previous Researchers’ nights;

Tools
o Questionnaire filled in by visitors (age, gender, profession, reasons for attending) at the entrance;
o Elaboration of statistical data about the activities (participation, frequentation, individual feedback);
o Face to face interviews of the competition’s winners;

Indicators and parameters to be applied
o Qualitative: public perception of researchers and their work: associations with the word “researcher”, characteristics of actual and desired researchers, interest expressed in science and research, enthusiasm for research careers, typology of attendees, will to attend similar future events…;
o Quantitative: number of hits on website, unique visitors, page views, pages per visit, average visit duration, geographical distribution, number of friends/followers on social networks, attendees, completed blogs and visits, number of press articles, number of promotional items displayed, media coverage…;

Selection of the sample
o Method: random selection;
o Absolute figures: at least 5 % of the overall attendees should provide a feedback;

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

Overview of the results
Collection, analysis and processing of 78 feedbacks (representing 3,12 % of the overall attendance) based on questionnaires displayed at the entrance of the event;
Main conclusions:
o Typology of visitors: average age 28,62, ; 38,46% male visitors and 61,54% female visitors, 80,26 % first comers, most of them interested in science and scientific events, 57, 69 % being pupils or students, mainly motivated (54 %) by interest for science;
o Overall positive feedback regarding the event (activities, interest, contacts with researchers, venues, scheduling, concrete orgnasiation): 94, 74 % of visitors considering it as excellent or very good;
o General intention expressed to take part in future similar events and other scientific events(97 %);
o Increased awareness about the importance of research in Austria (64% of respondents, although mentioning that it should be reinforced);
o Scarce knowledge about EU programmes and HORIZON 2020 in particular (82, 89 % not aware);

Improvements: with a view to future similar events:
o Specific efforts should be undertaken with a view to reaching and attracting people who normally would not attend science-linked events, since so far the major part of the attendees were already interested in science;
o Special efforts also should aim at disseminating information about Euroepan support in fvaour of research and researchers;
o Future similar events should intend gathering a larger attendance maybe through an intensification of the awareness campaign.

General impact of the action
o On public image of researchers and their job: people made aware that “researchers are amongst us”, “researchers are ordinary people with an extraordinary job”; due to the direct contacts and talks with visitors as well as with partners an evolution towrds the message “researchers are amongst us”, “researchers are ordinary people with an extraordinary job can be noted: in general the FH St. Pölten noted the media reports increased during the period of the first ERN 2011 through the last one in 2015. This might be not only because of the ERN but also definitely the ERN was a main reason for the higher media reports;
o On public image of science and its potential impact on citizens'daily lives: through the slogans such as "Research is fun and fascinating"; "Research helps citizens’ daily lives and well-being"; although this message was constantly transferred through the researchers during the ERN, no real measurable public evolution could be observed in Austria after such a short period of time; this clearly means that, despite their increasing efforts , both universities and science institutes have to go on promoting researchers and their role as well as science careers;
o On interest expressed by young people for career sciences: young people proved motivated to walk through the European researchers’ night by themselves, liked to discover the different activities and loved to try hands-on experiments; since 2011 first time the FH St. Pölten took part in the ERN, the requests from different national and regional science institutions didn't stop increasing. Since then, FH St. Pölten receives more numerous invitations regarding specific collaborations and events and it doesn't stop promoting and establishing events and actions involving both researchers and school students (“semester vacation project”, “kiddy-university”, “vif-kids”, “Science goes School”). Such type of activities didn't exist before the European Researchrs'night, and in the meantime, about 20 similar events per year are offered by the FH St. Pölten, ebvents which gain more and more acceptance. Also the interest expressed for research internships permanently increases. As an example, in Austria school students work one month within a research project at the FH St. Pölten, and their number increased from 7 interns in 2012 to 11 in 2015, as well as the requests for having workshops in schools with the University of Applied Science St. Pölten.
o Numerous requests for participation and active involvement in future similar initiatives like the Euroepan Researchers'night were received by FH St. Pölten, notably from the politics, business, industry and research as well as from various institutions. Documents about the past events (such as pictures for example) were also requested and several partners expressed their intrest in actively participating in future events; finally, as a result of the successful ERN the Ministry of Science, Research and Economy invited the FH St. Pölten to take part at the Vienna venue in the “Long night of Research” as well as in the Open Days of the Ministry.
Specific impacts observed:
o Increased interest of young people for science and science careers (with indication of the parameters used for measuring such impact whether possible); the number of requests addressed to FH. St. Pölten for workshops or practical training aimed at better knowing the researchers'work didn't stop increasing as from the European Researchers'night events; furthermore the FH St. Pölten also became a member of the Science Center Network in Austria;
o Increased public awareness about science and researchers' work (with indication of the parameters used for measuring such impact whether possible), as shown in several media reports before and after the ERN, reports which proved increasing since the ERN ,sign of a higher public awareness (although no broad survey was launched). Altough the “research awareness” is not very high in Austria according to the “Eurobarometer“ survey, the regional response to the FH St. Pölten constantly increased increased year after year.

young boy visiting a station

location Aula der Wissenschaften, entrance

audience at main event