The European Researchers Night will bring science closer to students and the general public through an online format
The UC has prepared, for November 27, activities with schools and outreach videos about the RD&i groups’ work.
Santander, October 21, 2020.- The University of Cantabria will celebrate during the Friday of November 27 multiple online activities, in order to commemorate the European Researchers Nigh 2020, an appointment that will be celebrated simultaneously on 370 cities all around the continent, aimed at bringing science closer to the citizen. The Pandemic has forced participating institutions to move the event from September to November, and to readapt formats into online versions, leaving out traditional events that gathered thousands of people, in Santander’s case, on the Plaza Porticada.
The project, promoted by the Vicerrectorado de Investigación y Transferencia del Conocimiento at the UC, through the Unidad de Cultura Científica y de la Innovación (UCC+i) is structured in two blocks: During the morning of said day, activities addressed to students in the region’s schools will take place; and during the evening, scientific outreach videos aimed at the general public will be offered, in which scientists from 30 different research groups will explain what their job at the lab consists of.
The effort to maintain the spread of science has led to the design of even more activities that those which would have taken place in-person, all with the goal “that everyone in Cantabria knows what the researchers do at the UC and what’s it for” explains Beatriz Salas, coordinator at the UCC+i. “Scientists are real people, who make really interesting science, which isn’t at all boring” she claims.
Therefore, the workshops, talks and games proposed by the groups bring both children and adults closer to the scientific method and interesting topics like the behaviour of metals, the basic principles of fire, the recognition of people through DNA, the applications of light, the observation of stars, etc. Most activities will be online, with the exception of the Scientific Coffee session, by the Instituto de Física de Cantabria, which will be in-person, with limited capacity, and previous registration required through the platform https://meapunto.unican.es. The event will take place at 20:30 in the Café de las Artes, with the topic “Ocean and Climate. The key is at the bottom of the sea”, leaded by Raquel Somavilla.
The Night’s full schedule will be soon announced through the Unidad de Cultura Científica y de la Innovación’s webpage https://web.unican.es/unidades/cultura-cientifica.
Previous debate-talks.
As pre-events of the European Researchers Night, the Unidad de Cultura Científica has organized two debate-talks that will take place on October 28 and 29, through a digital format. In both cases, registration through the following email will be required culturacientifica_uc@unican.es
The first event, aimed at a general public, will take place at 17:00, and is entitled: “Museos, arquitectura y revitalización urbana: del MoMA al Centro Botín”. Luis Walias Rivera, researcher at the Grupo de Historia y Teoría del Arte at the UC, will propose an immersion on the history of museums to learn their curiosities and dive deep on their architectonic value and their position on modern society.
The second day, at 12.00, the talk “¿Cuál es el camino para ser investigador?” will take place. Aimed at students on 4th of ESO and Bachillerato. Elizabeth Martin Jefremovas, from the Grupo de Magnetismo de la Materia at the University of Cantabria, will explain the similarities between the path of a virologist searching for a vaccine and a NASA engineer, sharing some of her personal experiences as a doctorate student.
A shared project
The project to celebrate together the European Researchers Night (ERN) was born within the working group of Cultura Científica de la Sectorial de Investigación del G9, in collaboration with the Oficinas de Proyectos Europeos, and it represents one of the first collaborative projects from this group with EU funding, which is contributing 8 million Euros to the 2020 edition, under the umbrella of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) from the program Horizon 2020. 100 projects attended the announcement, from which 6 Spanish ones were selected.
The main goals of this program are to bring the image of researchers closer to the citizenship, and to raise awareness over the nature of their work and its benefits to society, but also to promote the choice of a scientific career among young students, overcoming gender barriers.
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