Within the SciShops summer schools all project partners and external participants have participated in trainings on how to further develop their science shop regarding citizen science, partnership building, impact evaluation, moderation techniques, social media engagement and business planning. These are key learnings for building sustainable science shops and generally welcomed by researchers, students and other science shop-specific stakeholders. By having the developed resources available on the SciShops.eu platform , also translated in 6 European and international languages, SciShops.eu keeps creating impact on an international level and developing skills recommended for a science shop staff member.
By involving the European society through co-creation-style activities their perceptions and knowledge on current societal challenges and possible solutions will be heard. This knowledge is collected and gains visibility by contributing to the development of concrete research questions and the overall communication of project results. This has a positive overall impact on the European society and current societal challenges.
The European ecosystem is directly and indirectly strengthened by the work undertaken in SciShops.eu. Each type of entity who has established a science shop is benefitting from the action: privately owned companies use it as a means to come closer to the communities; for large enterprises this is even more important. KPMG has linked it to its CSR Strategy. NPOS use it to attract more funding, Universities to increase of their academic ranking and dissemination of research results and research institutes to disseminate results and achieve greater reach.
Moreover, the multiplicity of backgrounds and types of organizations which have established a science shop is a solid base that science shops are not only expanding in geographical reach, but they are also expanding in terms of type of establishment. This project succeeded in establishing science shops outside the boundaries of academia and expanded in the business sector. What is more, a large enterprise has established a science shop which again proves the concept’s potential of survival outside the academic boundaries but also opens the opportunity for further collaboration between business, research, education and policy to benefit the civil society on a local, national and European level. Furthermore, through raising awareness on the proved benefits of owning a science shop and by disseminating the solid results of the project such as the business planning understanding, the knowledge gathered during the establishment, the partnerships created etc. the newly established science shops can be the catalyst for further expansion of the ecosystem.
In the long-term, we aim at having an impact at building (additional) bridges between different initiatives in Europe and beyond and at promoting networking, twinning and exchange opportunities between Science Shops all over the world.
