SciShops

SciShops is a EU-funded Horizon 2020 project that is developing new Science Shops across Europe. VA (Public & Science) is one of 18 European partners in this three-year project, running September 2017 – February 2020. Science Shops are a model of community-based research that facilitates research and knowledge transfer with and for society. 

Science Shops carry out independent scientific research in response to concerns experienced by citizens and local civil society in order to create new knowledge that can be used to better understand or tackle societal issues.  The SciShops project is exploring ways how different types of research organisations, such as universities, research institutes, non-profit organisations and even companies, can develop sustainable Science Shops.

Ten new Science Shops across Europe are being established. The project has also developed guidelines, best practices and training to help organisations wishing to set up Science Shops as well as a networking and knowledge sharing platform and twinning scheme.

The work that VA has been involved in has included developing a set of case studies of existing Science Shops, assembling a collection of RRI Tools for Science Shops, and conducting a worldwide survey on awareness and experience of community-based participatory research. VA is also involved in the project’s communication activities and manages the project’s newsletter.

VA is currently promoting Science Shops within Sweden and is running a workshop on Science Shops in Stockholm on 9 October.

VA also ran its first pop-up Science Shop on 1 July during Almedalen Week in Visby, Sweden.

Also, save the date for SciShops’ final symposium on 30-31 January 2020 in Brescia, Italy. The programme will include skills development workshops and SciShops will be showcasing its ten new Science Shops. More information shortly.

Take a look at our information folder for more information about the project.
You can also read more about VA’s participation in the project in an interview with Helen Garrison.

Project Partners

For further information about the project, please contact Helen Garrison, Project Manager at VA.

Follow the Project on Twitter: @SciShops_EU, Facebook: @scishops.eu Or visit the project website.

You can read more about the project in the articles below:

| Av Vetenskap & Allmänhet

Go to Italy with SciShops pitch challenge!

Organisations conducting community-based participatory research are invited to participate in the SciShops pitch challenge. To participate, you need to present the research you are doing together with your local community in a three-minute video. We are looking for originality, creativity, enthusiasm and societal impact!

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| Av Vetenskap & Allmänhet

SciShops Summer School: learning and knowledge sharing

Between 1 and 4 July, the city of Limassol in Cyprus welcomed 45 participants from 15 different countries to the 2019 SciShops Summer School. With diverse backgrounds, ranging from researchers at universities to project managers in private companies, and varying levels of expertise in Science Shops, the participants gathered in this seaside city to learn together about many different aspects relating to the establishment, running and sustainability of Science Shops.

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| Av Vetenskap & Allmänhet

VA runs its first Pop-Up Science Shop at Almedalen

VA (Public & Science) ran its first pop-up Science Shop on 1 July during Almedalen Week in Visby, Sweden. Throughout the day, researchers from Swedish research organisations encouraged visitors to stop by the Pop-Up Science Shop to discover how research can be used to inform solutions to societal issues and to identify questions that they’d like to be answered by research.

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| Av Vetenskap & Allmänhet

Science Shops – pairing researchers and citizens to solve societal needs

Science Shops can be an effective model for developing mutually beneficial relationships between academia and society. By working together to find solutions to societal issues, students/researchers get to work on real-life problems and civil society organisations get access to research expertise and new knowledge.

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| Av Vetenskap & Allmänhet

New resources for Science Shops

As part of the EU SciShops project consortium, VA (Public & Science) has been helping to produce a range of resources to support both new and established Science Shops. The resources address various aspects of setting up and running a Science Shop and take into account different types of organisational models.

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| Av Vetenskap & Allmänhet

Awareness of science shops varies across Europe and between stakeholders

Awareness of science shops and community-based participatory research is much higher in Western Europe, than in other parts of Europe. Researchers are more likely to be familiar with these concepts than community organisations, the main beneficiaries, too. These are some of the results of a survey conducted by SciShops, a new Horizon 2020 project promoting the growth of science shops and community-based research in Europe. VA is a partner in SciShops and was responsible for conducting the survey.

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