The ESOF 2020 Team started working in January 2018 in order to strengthening the links with Central and Eastern European scientists, entrepreneurs, policy makers and citizens, thus making a crucial step towards a truly open and inclusive Europe. Besides the ESOF2020 Conference (held from the 2nd to the 6th of September 2020), the following activities have been organized: the ProESOF programme, the Science in the city Festival and the Satellite events.
The ProESOF Programme was an innovative tool, with a three-year programme of activities organized between 2018 and 2020, to anticipate and accompany the development of ESOF2020 Trieste. The ProESOF events could be included in the Science in the City Festival Programme, targeting a general public and taking place in Trieste also during the ESOF2020 week with exhibitions, science themed performances, interactive workshops, science cafès, lectures and participatory events, guided tours and all kind of innovative initiatives aiming at connecting science, technology, art and society. The contents for the ProESOF proposal, were connected to the ESOF2020 Trieste themes and the UNESCO sustainable development goals, in the effort to tackle the main challenges expected to have significant socio-economic impacts over the next 10-20 years and beyond. The overall number of accepted proposals was 342. The majority of the initiatives submitted were addressed to the general public and to students of different ages and has had a wide resonance across North-Eastern Italy and the Central-Eastern European countries.
The Science in the City Festival has been designed with a bottom up approach and, thanks to the involvement of more than 200 organizations, the Festival included 217 events and 26 exhibitions. The attendance was of approximately 30,800 persons in total, 5,800 virtually and 25,000 in physical presence.
The Satellite Events were smaller and specialized conferences organized in the occasion of ESOF2020 Trieste and held during the same week of the ESOF conference or in the nearby months. In the first case one of the aim was to allow attendees to participate in both events (ESOF Conference and the Satellite Event); in the second to arise the interest and attendance in both events, thanks to communication activities, and therefore multiplying the impact. Satellite Events also offered an opportunity to sponsors to showcase their brand and projects during both events. A variety of satellite events took place before, after and during ESOF2020.
Some 2,500 people registered at ESOF2020 Conference: more than 1,000 participated in person and 1,400 people connected remotely every day. The pillars of the Programme were: sustainability, innovation, international collaboration, with a specific focus on Central Eastern European Countries and how COVID-19 is changing the world and its impact on science, society and the environment. The scientific programme did contain 174 sessions, with more than 1.000 thousand speakers. Each session was attended online by around 300 people and the event saw 4,300 overall virtual visits. ESOF2020 was in the global spotlight: online visitors came from 52 countries across 5 continents.
