For the Awareness campaign may actions were taken including:
o Conception, realization of promotional material: posters, roll ups, programs, invitations, posters of various formats, banners of different formats, postcards, invitation cards for
pre-events, give away such as balloons, pens, stickers, thematic fliers… displayed during the pre-events and the period prior to the main event;
ο Public advertising: display of big banners and posters outside and inside partner's premises and public places.
o Publication of multiple versions of press releases circulated in numerous waves from all partners, invitations to all public and private sectors.
o Airing of announcements, advertising, interviews, appearance of coordinator through national and local radio stations.
o Partnership established with 33 media sponsors;
o Articles, announcements and advertisements published in newspapers and magazines, Press releases displayed to all media, networks and collaborators;
o Promotion during other public events
o Production of radio spot and video spot for all cities of both Greek consortia and airing everywhere in Greece.
o Promotional roll ups, banners, invitations, information leaflets, etc distributed and newspapers and TV announcements for the parallel events
o Set up new, improved welcome page www.rengreece.eu and www.rengreece.com hosting together links to both Greek consortia’s websites for 2018 - 2019; Set up new,
improved Ren Athens consortium’s website: www.renathens.gr. Updating and maintenance of social networks profiles: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (hashtag #rengreece);
o Over 30 partnerships with on-line media sponsors, special announcements on popular websites and science organizations websites.
o Creation of two “teaser” videos, released in the social media
o Many pre-events and Mind-the-Lab actions organized at 5 cities.
Approximately 2.000.000 people were made aware of the Researchers Night.
During the Night:
o Offer of activities including:
o Numerous hands-on activities, tens of science shows, several specific kids-oriented activities, several different workshops
o Many guided visits in participating institutions,
o Competitions and games (numerous game areas);
o Theatre performances, Planetarium shows;
o Science talks, exhibitions (scientific instruments, scientific achievements);
o Art and science activities, music performances by researchers and students;
o European corners;
o Active involvement of over 256 researchers in both preparatory works and implementation of the activities
o Over 10.000 visitors having taken part in the various activities offered.
According to the feedback from questionnaires distributed to different target groups and the polls results, it can be concluded that the Researcher’s Night 2018 at Demokritos was a very successful event. The number of votes in polls in 2018 was almost twice that in previous years. Following the polls results, 92% of votes correspond to positive evaluation of the event and following the answers in questionnaires, 100% of respondents rated the event as very interesting or interesting. Visitors reported that they strengthened their interest about science and research after the event. As in the previous years, interactive games, experiments and presentation of the Researchers’ Centers have been rated by visitors as the most attractive and interesting activities during the event.
All respondent visitors found their contact with researchers and scientists very interesting and reported that their opinion about researchers was much improved after the event. Intelligence combined with hard work have been rated as the most outstanding characteristics of a talented researcher.
The vast majority of the students (91%) believe that scientific research has an overall positive influence on peoples’ lives, mainly through new discoveries, medicines and inventions. However, a percentage of 8% (higher in females) raises some concern about the negative effects of scientific research mainly as regards the use of animals in scientific experiments.
The participating researchers/scientists in the event believe that public is in general interested in research and efforts for the dissemination of scientific and research results in the country should be enhanced. In this respect, they believe that Researchers’ Night promotes the level of dissemination of research results to the people.
