Date: 14 May

Hour: 15-16h (CEST time)

Speaker: Michela Bertero, Head of International and Scientific Affairs at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, EU-LIFE representative in the European Open Science Policy Platform and coordinator of the H2020 Project ORION on Open Science.

The InSPIRES EU project is delighted to welcome you to join a new webinar on “Open science: the dimension of stakeholder engagement”. The invited speaker is Michela Bertero, Head of International and Scientific Affairs at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, EU-LIFE representative in the European Open Science Policy Platform and coordinator of the H2020 Project ORION on Open Science.

The webinar will provide a brief historical perspective on Open Science, followed by a look on Open Science policies and actions today in Europe, and future steps. There will also be a reflection on the dimension of stakeholder engagement in Open Science. Finally, the webinar will conclude with a presentation of the ORION Open Science project (www.orion-openscience.eu), in which there is a combination of Open Science and Responsible Research and Innovation concepts. ORION aims to promote engagement of multiple stakeholders in fundamental life sciences research, by trying out multiple co-creation activities and experimenting different methods and contexts. The ultimate goal is to trigger cultural and institutional changes among the research community.

If you are interested to participate in this webinar, please register through this form to get access to the online platform, where it will take place.

We encourage you to forward this invitation to your Science Shop Network (students, CSOs, researchers, etc.) and to any other community where you may think it can be of interest.

Spread the word!

The CEADES Foundation in Cochabamba, Bolivia, as a member of the InSPIRES consortium, invites the university community and interested researchers to participate in the International Conference on Research with Community Participation, to be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 6-8, 2020.

The main objective is to spread the concepts and methodology of Research with Community Participation under the “Science Shop” model (which can be translated into Spanish as “Encuentro entre ciencia y sociedad”) in the Latin American context, and to organize a network of researchers and students committed to and capable of responding to demands from organized civil society, particularly from the most vulnerable groups, regarding issues related to health, the environment and water.

The Conference consists of two stages:

• A first stage (conferences and presentation of scientific posters, day 1), where the theoretical concepts and experiences of research with community participation carried out in Bolivia and other countries such as Spain, Argentina, France, Holland, Brazil and Ecuador will be presented.
• During the second stage (participatory workshop, days 2 and 3) a workshop will be held (limited places) with the aim of providing practical training in “Science Shop” model methodology, and how it can be adapted for the Latin American context.

 

More Information

• CEADES Bolivia Website
• Programme
• Poster

Author: CEADES Foundation

At the end of its second periodic report to the European Commission (July 2018 – September 2019), InSPIRES has implemented 71 Science Shop projects (already finished or in progress) and keeps exploring, on the field, a transformative Science Shops framework. 

Other achievements and challenges can be shared, including: the presentation of the InSPIRES Open Platform for impact evaluation; the results of InSPIRES Open Call (six projects that will be implemented in Africa, Latin America & Europe); our Spring School in Tunisia (50 participants came from Tunisia, Morocco, France, Canada, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Niger and Ivory Coast among others); seven open webinars and more than 100 local events.

Please, follow this link to a more detailed photo-reportage on InSPIRES progress.

Date: 18 November

Hour: 16 pm (CET time), one hour duration

The InSPIRES EU project is delighted to welcome you to join a new webinar on “Principles of Participatory Research for Science Shops” on the 18th of November at 16h (CET time).

In this webinar, Budd Hall, Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education and member of the Advisory Board of the InSPIRES project, will give a presentation and lead a discussion on the principles of participatory research and their application to the work of Science Shops.

If you are interested to participate in this webinar, please register through this form to get access to the online platform, where it will take place.  

We encourage you to forward this invitation to your Science Shop Network (students, CSOs, researchers, etc.) and to any other community where you may think it can be of interest.

Spread the word!

 

InSPIRES is pleased to announce that the Open Call evaluation process has been completed with a final selection of six participatory research projects to be implemented during the upcoming years.

The InSPIRES Open Call supports the implementation of participatory research projects focused on health and environmental issues that are considered key societal challenges, giving special attention to gender parity and vulnerable groups (women, the elderly, adolescents, migrants and refugees).

The Open Call was launched May 14^th and disseminated through the InSPIRES’s website, social networks and other channels in collaboration with the consortium members. The call closed on 23:59 CET on June 15^th.

43 proposals were received before the prescribed deadline and evaluated following the evaluation criteria described in the Open Call. The evaluators that participated in this task were the members of the InSPIRES’ General Assembly, which is formed by one representative of each InSPIRES partner.

A high variety of proposals was evaluated in terms of geographical spread and topic. The awarded entities, which tackle very different health and environmental challenges, are from Greece, Turkey, Uganda, Romania, Bénin, Ecuador and Bolivia. Each participatory research project presented by the institutions will receive a maximum amount of 20.000 euros.

Granted entities will be mentored by the InSPIRES consortium to promote the alignment with InSPIRES’ practices, as well as to promote mutual learning. Furthermore, they will have the opportunity to present their project at the final InSPIRES Conference and share their experiences and lessons learned with a variety of European-level stakeholders in the project’s final conference (spring 2021).

The final selection of the six projects was a difficult task due to the high amount of proposals received. Furthermore, many projects fulfilled the evaluation criteria and were interesting in terms of topic, alignment to the needs of different stakeholders, participatory methodologies and inclusiveness of Responsible Research and Innovation and Open Science approaches.

List of selected proposals:

• DRAXIS Environmental S.A (Thessaloniki, Greece). Topic: Air pollution

The aim is to empower citizens, and especially the elderly ones, to be involved in community air quality monitoring, interpret the collected data and protect their health from the hazardous outdoor air pollution. Elderly citizens will be involved in problem definition, data search, collection, preparation, analysis and visualization, and finally knowledge creation. They will be able to measure the outdoor air quality around them with Do-It-Yourself low-cost sensors and low-tech devices proposed by the hackAIR project. During the project they will be also able to access and visualize air quality data from heterogeneous sources.

• Kadıköy Municipality (Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey). Topic: Social resilience in disaster management

The overall aim is to foster social resilience in a neighbourhood as a response to disaster risk reduction. It also aims to strengthen local networks to create a resilient social structure, guided and supported by the local government. Some of the objectives are to increase risk perception, empower citizens and use ICT tools to make organized social response more effective.

• Gulu University. Gulu, Uganda. Topic: Solid waste management

The project will involve the youths in research about sustainable waste management with a view in creating job opportunities, identify challenges and solutions to sustainable waste management in Gulu Municipality with key stakeholders and monitor sustainable waste management.

Other objectives will be to lobby local government to strategize/target environmental issues in their planning and allocate adequate funds in the budget.

• Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania. Miercurea Ciuc, Romania. Topic: Chemical and biological characteristics and public health aspects of fog and precipitations

Development of open science strategies in Harghita County to point out, refine and implement a pilot research study concerning possible public health aspects of air pollution; assure the development of a science shop network to integrate in a systemic way the input of local actors and stakeholders into regional R&D activities; support local and regional decision making bodies with evidence-based policy recommendations and disseminate and inform the general public on participatory research actions and their results.

• Boutique des Sciences de l’Université de Parakou. Parakou, Bénin. Topic: Impacts of climate change

Build an open database of local knowledge related to climate change, collected in the form of narratives in local languages and French from 400 elders, men and women, in 100 rural villages in Africa and Haiti by 100 students supervised by 10 science shops, with the support of teachers and civil society organizations. The knowledge collected through the epicollect5 application will be transcribed, prepared and disseminated to generate either research data useful in the fight against climate change or educational or awareness materials.

• Facultad de Enfermería, Universidad Mayor de San Simón (Bolivia) and SIEDIES (Ecuador) Cochabamba, Bolivia and Quito, Ecuador. Topic: Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV

The overall aim is to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV within the health system in Ecuador and Bolivia simultaneously. The project will identify barriers and opportunities to move towards a free stigma and discrimination health care system, and will provide training to the nursing school about practices and concepts that are potentially stigmatizing and discriminating against people living with HIV.

More information: Open Call results (full document)

This summer, InSPIRES project has been spotlighted among other EU research success stories. European Commission’s official web page focussed on the consortium’s international cooperation values. This and other elements were illustrated with examples from the partners’ different challenges and lessons learned.

Under the title “Science shops inspire better research and innovation”, the article summarized: “Poor communication can have dire consequences in vital areas like the environment and health. Innovative ‘science shop’ projects, which translate society’s questions into a language that scientists understand, are making a difference in remote Bolivian communities learning about Chagas disease, among Hepatitis C patients in Tunisia, and in projects closer to Europe’s shores, too.”

Keep reading European Commission’s article here

Date: 20th of September

Hour: 14h (CEST time)

Speaker: Helen Garrison, Project & Communications Manager at the Swedish organisation Vetenskap & Allmänhet

The InSPIRES EU project is delighted to welcome you to join a new webinar on Inspiring Science Shop Models on the 20th of September at 14h (CEST time).

In this webinar, Helen Garrison, Project & Communications Manager at the Swedish organisation Vetenskap & Allmänhet, will present a number of inspiring Science Shop models, illustrated using case studies of existing Science Shops and community-based participatory research initiatives based upon interviews undertaken during the exploratory phase of the project. Examples include pop-up Science Shops, those embracing virtual ways of working as well as more traditional formats, and at a range of different types of organisations (e.g. non-profit, university-based, research institutes).

These case studies cover Science Shops models that have been analysed within the Horizon 2020 SciShops project over the last 18 months, which can be inspiring for the Science Shop community.

If you are interested to participate in an interactive discussion and receive access to the online platform, please register through this form.

Fifty participants and ten speakers from Africa and Europe animated the French speaking Spring School around Science Shops organized by the Institut Pasteur de Tunis and the Direction of Culture, Science and Society of the University of Lyon as partners of the consortium of the H2020 InSPIRES project.

The InSPIRES Spring School was hold in Tunis, Tunisia with the aim of stimulating the Science Shop system on the African continent as well as in the French-speaking countries around the world. Participants came from different countries, as: Tunisia, Morocco, France, Canada, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Niger, Ivory Coast (examples of shared experiences at @inspiresscience twitter)

Around the concept of participatory research, the aim of this Spring School has been to explore the means of producing socially useful knowledge that can lead to significant societal changes. It also offered a platform for training, exchange and networking with experts in participatory research to develop new science shops or similar devices. Workshops were based on the process of a science shop project and insights about establishing a science shop unit or device.

At the event’s closure, the participants expressed their gratitude to organizers.

The content of this Spring School has been recorded and will be soon shared in the InSPIRES Youtube Channel.

The InSPIRES project launches an open call for funding participatory research projects. This InSPIRES Open Call will provide financial support for the implementation of participatory research projects focused on health and environmental issues that are considered key societal challenges, giving special attention to gender parity and vulnerable groups –women, the elderly, adolescents, migrants and refugees­­­­–.

As a result of this competitive Open Call, approximately six grants will be awarded for implementing participatory research project and the maximum estimated budget for each project is 20,000 euros.

The projects need to be designed and implemented with methodologies aligned with Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), Open Science and Impact Evaluation, including innovative models and methodologies such as participatory research agenda setting with CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) and other stakeholders, and also methodologies for the co-design and the co-implementation of research projects.

Full description

Read here (document in pdf.) the full description (projects’ specifications, participation criteria, evaluation process, etc.).

How to apply

Applicants must send the complete Application Form and the CV of the project manager or principal investigator before 23:59 CET on June 15^th to rmalagrida@irsicaixa.es with cc mpinoc@irsicaixa.es. Please, use the e-mail Subject: “Open Call for participatory research”.

22-23 April 2019 – Institut Pasteur de Tunis

The Institut Pasteur de Tunis and the Direction of Culture, Science and Society of the University of Lyon as partners of the consortium of the H2020 InSPIRES project, are organising a French speaking spring school around Science Shops. Its ambition is to create and strengthen links between the research community and civil society (represented by organizations, associations or communities working on societal issues). It will also offer a platform for training, exchange and networking with experts in participatory research to develop new science shops or similar devices.

Around the concept of participatory research, the aim of this training is to explore the means of producing socially useful knowledge that can lead to significant societal changes. The InSPIRES Spring School will be held in Tunis, Tunisia with the aim of stimulating the Science Shop system on the African continent as well as in the French-speaking countries around the world. Participants will come from different countries (Tunisia, Morocco, France, Canada, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, Benin, Guinea, Niger, Ivory Coast).

At the opening of this event, a round table will be organized bringing together experts from participatory research and science shops from different horizons. After that, workshops based on the process of a science shop will generate knowledge exchange and offer further skills to participants of the spring school.

The inscriptions for the Spring School have already been closed but the content will be recorded and put online in the InSPIRES Youtube Channel.