InSPIRES launches 32 Science Shop projects in its first year
A plan to combat isolation and anonymity in cities is being evaluate by a Boutique des Sciences (Science Shop) project in Lyon. Master Students Célia Gapail (Social Anthropology) and Anjelo Maindelson (Urban Environment), guided by Beatrice Maurines (Université de Lyon), are assessing the impacts of the two-year experience of “Les Petites Cantines”, alternative spaces where “meal is an excuse (…) that allows people to meet people from other generations and life course”. The experience involves a free-price economic model that is also being evaluated.
This and other ongoing 31 Science Shop projects are the practical scenario in which InSPIRES reflects on its models of participatory research. The projects are studying topics such as: the acceptability of a Leprosy post-exposure prophylaxis program in Nepal (VU, Amsterdam), stigma and discrimination as barriers to access preventive and diagnostic measures for HIV (Living Lab for Health at IrsiCaixa, Barcelona) or the genetic characterization of circulating Hepatitis C (HCV) virus strains among injecting drug users in Tunisia (ITP).
InSPIRES project, coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme “Science with and for Society” (SwafS), has presented its first-year report.
A long path still lays under our feet but some goals have been already achieved besides the mentioned research projects. For example, a qualitative study of 80 interviews to Science Shops structures and similar initiatives, a systematic literature review on Science Shops, and an online collaborative design thinking exercise; all these to create a concept map of the “Science Shop at its best”. InSPIRES has also organized five key webinars, produced the prototype of a card-game and outlined its Science Shops database -with information on structures and projects- and a theoretical framework for the so-called Science Shops 2.0. We keep moving!
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