Macaronesia’s Researchers' Night

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MacaroNight (Macaronesia’s Researchers' Night)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2019-12-31

The overall objective of MACARONIGHT was to organise a shared Researchers’ Night for the Macaronesia Region & connect the population of these islands under the umbrella of the universal language of science. By focusing on the scientific and technology areas identified in the Smart Specialization Strategies for the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores the consortium aimed at raising public awareness for future research areas that could be the greatest benefit for the Region. The project also supported the improvement of the public recognition of researchers by enhancing the understanding of the impact of researchers' work on citizen's daily life.

The general objectives of the project were:
Research is fun and fascinating;
Researchers are one of us, ordinary people with an extraordinary job as such they share with other people passions, hopes, problems, concerns, dreams…;
Research is an amazing career choice and offering a range of opportunities for entrepreneurship;

In addition, MACARONIGHT 2019 also pursued the below specific objectives:

The future of science in Macaronesia;
Researchers' job is very useful, and it contributes to citizens' daily lives and well-being in the Macaronesia region;
Obtain first-hand information about state-of the art of research conducted in the Macaronesian region;
Better understand the opportunities science may offer you and problems researchers face with in the Macaronesian region;
Europe cares for its researchers – even in an outermost region;
Researchers’ Mobility in Europe is an existing opportunity even for islanders.

WP1

In 2019, awareness raising efforts were focussing on strengthening the brand developped in 2018.
Main tasks undertaken: update of the project communication plan and the specific communication guidelines for internal and external communication, audiovisual promotional material, posters, leaflets, agendas etc;
Main results (as of the NIGHT/end of September 2019):

o App. 500.000 people aware of the night via the awareness campaign;
o 16.504 pageviews at the event website;
o 21 MacaroNight banners displayed on the collaborators’ website;
o 617 followers on Facebook;
o 6 videos on YouTube;
o 191 followers on Instagram;
o 1.528 followers on Twitter;
o Around the time of the Night, MacaroNight’s Twitter reached more than 550.000 users
o 150 posters and 350 leaflets, plus 180 personal invitations sent to schools;
o 4 press conferences organised accompanied by press-releases;
o 15 radio interviews conducted;
o 2 TV ads run in prime time in regional TV;
o 6 appearances on national/regional TV channels before the event;
o Total of 39 pre-events from April 2019 to September 2019;

The success of the awareness campaign can be extrapolated from the quantitative results of the attendance to the Nights and the social media campaigns.

WP2
The NIGHT 2019 was organised in four islands: Ponta Delgada (Sao Miguel, Azores), Funchal (Madeira), La laguna (Tenerife) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, engaged 300 researchers and attracted over 9000 participants;
In total:
99 activities were organised, out of which 6 guided tours, 3 contests, 25 scientific chats, 7 exhibitions, 4 scientific cinema screenings, 51 hands-on experiments and 3 outdoor activties;
106 different entities collaborated with the project, out of which 43 were public entities (museums, institutes, etc.);
27 EU projects were exhibited and two EU Corners were set-up (Azores and Las Palmas).

WP3

Tasks undertaken: preparation of guidelines for data collection and training of volunteers and creating related questionnaires/interviews plus the evaluation of the data.
In total:

o 368 on-site flash surveys collected representing approximately 4 % of the estimated number of participants;
o 113 suggestions (all venues) & 68 narrative interviews collected (Canary Islands);
o 221 children interviewed (Azores & Madeira);
o 277 school visitors provided feedback (Canary Islands);

Main results:

The total number of main survey responses collected representing 4% of the estimated participation is somewhat lower than originally targeted (8-10%). However, the additional measures, such as the narrative and KIDS interviews and the short poll targeting school visit participants provided a good auxiliary information for the quantitative analysis as a whole. The set of questions and means of data collection proved to be successful in reaching the whole spectrum of attendees and in achieving all specific objectives of the work package;
The 2019 event can mostly be characterised as a family activity (with 39% of the on-site survey responders attended with family), this was especially a case for the Azores where this figure reaches to 75%.
Similar to Macaronight 2018 and to experiences gained during other similar science outreach initiatives, the educational background survey participants illustrates that the event were mainly visited by people with university background (58 %).
In contracts to 2018, however, the ratio of "first NIGHT-ers" dropped by almost 25%, as in 2019 only 56% of the responders participated Researchers` Night for the first time.
Yet, similarly to last year, the vast majority (90%) of the survey responders found the project concept, the types of activities (90%) and the location & schedule (86 %) of the events satisfactory and very satisfactory (scored 4-5 on scale of 5). Last but not least all but 2 persons would recommend to other people to attend MACARONIGHT in 2020.

Macaronight was the first of its kind with potential long-lasting beneficial impacts that could extend beyond the immediate objectives of the project as it aimed at creating overall public awareness of science, research and innovation, especially in areas where the region of Macaronesia has outstanding performance and results even by international comparison. MacaroNight also highlighted the importance of understanding the connection between investment in science and regional development, also in its actions aimed at building science capital in remote regions. Enhanced public recognition expected to result in public support that is much needed for the implementation of the smart specialisation strategies themselves.

Las Palmas activity 2019

EU Corner game, 2019, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

Birds` eye view of Macaronight 2019, Las Palmas, Canarias

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MacaroNight (Macaronesia’s Researchers' Night)

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