Stakeholder engagement for science education activities
One of the main characteristics of open science communities such as open schooling or citizen science projects is the collaboration with multiple stakeholders. Co-creation within such a community can be very rewarding and valuable. However, identifying, approaching and working with partners does not happen by itself. This session will attempt to set up a stakeholder network for another institution (such as a school), taking a look at the roles science organisations play. Are they there to inspire; presenting examples and sharing good practises? Perhaps they organise events to connect stakeholders and institutions. Or are they a ‘travel agent,’ sharing their own network, actively finding suitable local stakeholders and offering ready-made projects? Speakers will present examples of their roles in supporting stakeholder engagement in open schooling or citizen science projects, before we split into groups where speakers and participants explore these roles further or invent new ones.
Facilitator
Director - Schwartz-Reisman Science Education Centers
Weizmann Institute of Science
Session speakers
Researcher and Lecturer in Science Education
EU-Citizen.Science is an online platform for sharing knowledge, tools, training, and resources for citizen science. Joseph will speak about how the project partners involved in establishing the platform set out to engage different kinds of stakeholders, along with the challenges they faced. The vision for EU-Citizen.Science is for the platform to become an online hub for the democratisation of science and Joseph will discuss the role of stakeholder engagement in involving citizen science participants, practitioners, researchers, policy makers across Europe.
Senior Project Manager Education
As part of the EU-funded Schools As Living Labs project, we are supporting schools in identifying, approaching and working with stakeholders. To this end, we have designed a methodology and workshop for the teachers. In practice, we see that it can be challenging for schools and their students to find suitable stakeholders. That is why we are experimenting with different ways of support within the project. We would love to discuss our different roles, struggles and solutions with you.
Lagoa (S. Miguel)
Portugal
Work in science communication in small islands (with limited resources and audiences) partnerships, stakeholders, networks…are the key for the implementation and success of many projects and activities. We will share the experience of the involvement of our science centre in the Regional Plan Against Poverty and Social Exclusion.
Learning Spaces and Community Engagement Manager
Old Observatory Leiden - Leiden University
We will share our role in and experiences with the EU-funded Open Science Hub project “Studenten voor Educatie” that was developed in collaboration with the local municipality, a school for applied sciences, a foundation and several primary school boards. It strives to achieve equity of opportunity and reduce teacher workload by matching University students to primary schools to overcome the knowledge lag due to COVID-19. In two years we have grown from 4 to over 35 schools in the project.
