When looking for partners or for funding, we’re advocating, using our brand to find a common ground, demonstrating we can contribute to their mission or agenda. Advocating for the engagement of citizens in science and technology used to be good for its own sake. But we are increasingly being asked: but what for? In front of pressing societal challenges, some partners are asking how powerful organisations such as ours - with a high level of trust and a large reach - actually contribute to addressing those challenges.
Should we explicitly position our advocacy on one or more of these challenges? What impacts, positive and negative, does it have on the brand of the organisation, on our audiences and on our funders?
Facilitator
Session speakers
Director
NEMO
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Michiel will bring City and National perspectives.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Association of Science-Technology Centers
Washington, DC
United States
Cristin will bring a perspective from her experience with advocacy and public policy in North America. As the President and CEO of the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC), Cristin will share the principles that ASTC uses when making the case for science engagement to policymakers, funders, and other stakeholders. As the former Chief of Staff to President Obama's science advisor, Cristin will also share a policymaker's perspective.
Founding Director
Munich
Germany
Michael John will bring the perspective of a themed organisation - Biotopia, a new museum and forum for life sciences and environment in planning in Munich.
Developement Director
Warsaw
Poland
Joanna will bring a fundraising perspective.
How to harness the power of partnerships in our advocacy work? The partnerships we are having can have a real impact on our advocacy work. Cooperation with big companies and other national partners gives us a lot of leverage in any public conversation about the engagement of citizens in science and technology. How can we use our very specific sponsoring or project agreement to create a co-operation and synergy between our partners and create even better leverage for our cause? Is it even possible? What are the external and internal factors that you need to take into consideration? And how not to lose the money in the process? I will share the experiences of the Copernicus but also try to add some challenging questions for the community.