Showcasing science in action – European Researchers’ Night set to inspire and amaze

On 28-29 September, it’s time again for Researchers’ Night - Europe’s largest science festival. In Sweden, ForskarFredag will be celebrated in 28 cities with hundreds of exciting opportunities to meet researchers and take part in experiments, shows, competitions, exhibitions and science cafés.

Three pieces of policy advice to the next Swedish government

In the run up to the Swedish general election, VA has been coordinating the #Hurvetdudet? (how do you know that?) initiative to promote more evidence-based campaigning and the greater use of scientific knowledge in public debate. Together with 60 organisations, we have formulated three concrete pieces of advice for Sweden’s next government, published in national media.

Forthcoming activities

Join astronauts and representatives from space organisations to discuss ways to spark interest in science through space at a Japan-Sweden conference being co-organised by VA on 8 October in Stockholm.

Communicating Science in a complex world is a workshop being held on 17 October in Brussels to explore the challenges of communicating controversial research topics, such as genome editing. Everyone welcome.

Regional heats of the engaging and fast-paced Swedish science communication contest, Researchers’ Grand Prix, are taking place in six cities on Researchers’ Night. For the second year, researchers across the whole of Sweden can also win a place in the national final on 27 November in Stockholm by sending in a video presentation (deadline 15 October).

Meet VA at this year’s Engage conference in Edinburgh, UK on 28–29 November, where we will be talking about a number of Swedish initiatives as well as the EU SciShops project.

VA’s recent activities

Preliminary results from the  News Evaluator Election Special suggest teenagers' newsfeeds contain mostly credible political news from established news media. In the project, 2,500 pupils helped researchers review the credibility of political news during election week. The preliminary results of the experiment are now available.

Almost 4,000 photos of ladybirds have been uploaded so far by pupils and members of the public as part of this year’s Researchers’ Night mass experiment, the Ladybird Experiment. The photos are helping to train an app to recognise Sweden’s over 60 species of ladybird and contribute to research in the field of biodiversity.

In July, VA joined around 4,000 other delegates to participate in the 2018 EuroScience Open Forum, Europe’s largest interdisciplinary science meeting, held in Toulouse. At the conference, we organised/co-organised three sessions: a panel discussion showcasing innovative science communication projects in the Nordics, an interactive session exploring how digital media is changing how people feel about science and a roundtable session on ways to bridge the divide detween scicomm researchers and practitioners. We also participated in three other sessions.

The Horizon 2020 SciShops project has been producing a range of resources to support the development of new science shops. The latest include a collection of science shop scenarios describing key aspects that influence how science shops operate plus an impact analysis exploring the impact that science shops are having on their communities.

VA recently published comments on the draft of the EU’s next framework programme for research and innovation, encouraging the Swedish government and Swedish members of the European Parliament to act to make Horizon Europe more citizen-oriented.

The Nordic Hub of the Horizon 2020 BLOOM bioeconomy project has now been launched by JAMK University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä and VA. Stakeholders interested in increasing awareness and demand for forest-based products and materials among the public will be invited to workshops during November to discuss communication opportunities and challenges.

Interest in life sciences research is generally high among European citizens. The three most accepted purposes of using genome editing are related to the medical field. These are some results from a recent survey and report on “Public attitudes to life sciences research” conducted in six European countries by VA in Sweden and CEITEC in the Czech Republic. The survey is a part of the European ORION Open Science project.

In 2016, Swedish pupils and researchers carried out the largest ever scientific study of public notice boards. Results from the Researchers’ Night Notice Board Experiment have now been published in the scientific journal PLOS One. 

VA’s recent publications and resources available in English

VA Barometer 2017/2018: An annual survey into the Swedish public’s general attitudes towards science and researchers.

VA information folder 2018: Information about VA and its members.
 
SwafS national advocacy platform: to enhance Swedish participation in Horizon 2020’s SwafS programme.

VA in social media