The University of Malta is a partner in a €4 million Horizon 2020 project investigating governance and cultures in scientific institutions to foster the science-society dialogue.
The four-year project, named Nucleus, an acronym for a ‘New Understanding of Communication, Learning and Engagement in Universities and Scientific Institutions’, will start in September.
Edward Duca, national coordinator for the project in Malta, said Nucleus was an opportunity to bring society closer to University. “Engaging the public with the research in Malta is needed to drive education and economic growth. Being a publicly funded body, a major role for University is to communicate its research with the Maltese public,” he said.
An international consortium of 24 partners from Europe, Asia and Africa is involved in the project. It will be coordinated by Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences in Cleves, Germany, one of Europe’s youngest universities which runs Europe’s only full-fledged bachelor’s degree in science communication.
“Our consortium is aware of how ambitious this project is,” said project leader Alexander Gerber from Rhine-Waal, Germany. “It aims at nothing less than rethinking the very foundations of communication governance in institutionalised science.”
The main goal, according to Gerber, is to find ways to align the communication structures and processes in science on the one hand with the expectations of policymakers and civil society in the context of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI) on the other. The rather complex paradigm of RRI is also expected to become more accessible to practising scientists and to the public.
Nucleus aims to contribute to the debate on science policy in Malta and Europe, including the future design of Horizon 2020 and the European Research Area.
www.nucleus-project.eu