NMI3 was at the Public Awareness of Research Infrastructures workshop
The workshop was a great opportunity to share expectations, experiences, and give examples of work conducted in several European research infrastructures.
A group of participants at PARI. © Claudia Niiranen, MLZ
Inês Crespo, 22/06/2015
Where: Garching, Germany
When: June 18-19
Website: frm2.tum.de/erf-workshop
On June 18-19 the workshop “Public Awareness of Research Infrastructures” was held at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, co-organised by ESO, the European Association of National Research Facilities (ERF-AISBL) and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ). This was the 8th of a series of workshops and seminars organised by the ERF-AISBL.
The workshop brought together around 90 people, counting with press officers and heads of several research facilities, social researchers from Europe and the United States, as well as project managers and funding agencies. The aim was to present expectations, experiences and give examples of their work on public relations. This was a very good opportunity for participants to learn from each other and have many fruitful discussions.
NMI3 was also present. The NMI3 Information Manager, Inês Crespo, was part of the organising committee and gave the talk “Communication Beyond and Within the European Consortium of Neutron and Muon Facilities” where she told about the project and the NMI3’s dissemination and outreach material and channels used to promote it.
While a number of participants usual collaborate for their work, events like this one make it possible to finally meet in person and have more time to discuss future steps and how go further together.
Programme
The programme included 34 different talks, a guided tour to ESO and one to the FRM II neutron source, speed networking, and of course a typical Bavarian dinner. Please see below for further details.
Plenary talks:
- Welcome by Tim de Zeeuw, ESO Director, and Jürgen Neuhaus (on behalf of Wolfgang Sandner, ERF Chair and Director General and CEO of ELI-DC International Association AISBL)
- Of Dogs and Cats – The Communication Challenge for Scientists and Politicians by Claus Madsen, ESO
- CERN – Education and Outreach by Rolf Landua, CERN
- Stakeholder Engagement in Big Science by John Womersley, STFC
- Challenges and goals of outreach and communication of research at large scale infrastructures by Ina Helms (on behalf of Anke-Rita Kaysser-Pyzalla), HZB
Parallel Sessions:
- Public engagement with research infrastructures
- Communication to target groups
- Risk Communication
- PR of a facility under construction
- Best practice
- Using social media for wide spread communication
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