Print
News

NanOpinion received one of the coveted Reach.Out! Challenge Awards

21. May. 2015

ZSI was coordinator of this year's winning project which discussed nanotechnologies with a broad public across Europe.

The second Reach.Out! Challenge took part on the 13th of May 2015 in the French city of Lille: The winners of the challenge were announced during a plenary event at the E-MRS Spring Conference 2015. The Reach.Out! science communication competition aimed to engage the members of the European Materials Science community who have designed, organised and implemented a public outreach activity in the EU between May 2014 and March 2015. Besides the main awards to researchers and organisations specialised in science, technology or engineering of advanced materials, the NanOpinion project, which was designed and implemented by social scientists, gained a special award in recognition of an outstanding outreach activity adressing successfully the general public. Maria Schrammel represented  ZSI’s unit Technology & Knowledge (T&W) at the ceremony in Lille and took over the award.

Innovative strategies in science communication: reaching those hard to reach
In order to promote a broad social discussion of nanotechnologies within society, NanOpinion organised 44 events in 26 cities located in 18 countries. The project was especially successfull regarding the high involvement of hard to reach groups and achieved to engage approximately 15.000 people in the public space. The project investigated how opinion on nanotechnologies is shaped and how to inform public  and to trigger debate with a specific focus on hard to reach. The effort yielded a wealth of data which supports to plan future public engagement on nanotechnologies as well as to manage regulation.

Further details on design and results of the European project NanOpinion are available in 14 languages: http://nanopinion.eu/en
Find also more information on the E-MRS Spring Conference 2015 and the Reach.Out! Challenge Award: www.emrs-strasbourg.com

Related Articles:

Tags: nanotechnology, science communication, social innovation