SciShops – how to develop new Science Shops

SciShops was a EU-funded Horizon 2020 project aimed at promoting the growth of community-based participatory research and Science Shops across Europe. The project ran from September 2017 to February 2020. VA (Public & Science) was one of 18 partners from 13 European countries.

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 explored 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 were established during the project alongside resources, tools and training to support new Science Shops. Read profiles of the new Science Shops.

Resources for Science Shops

On www.scishops.eu, a networking and knowledge sharing platform, you can find a range of resources to support the establishment and development of Science Shops that have developed during the project, such as:

• Guide on how to establish and run a Science Shop
• Case studies of Science Shops and best practices
• Tools to support responsible research and innovation (RRI) and stakeholder engagement
• What’s a Science Shop? FAQ
• Online training modules
• Scenarios collection
• CBPR Practitioner’s Roadmap and Methodology toolkit
• Science Shop Tips & Tricks
• Strategy for Participatory Research
• Literature review on community-based participatory research
• Getting the most out of twinning and mentoring – top tips
• Stakeholder survey findings on awareness, experience and opinion about community-based participatory research in 34 countries
• SciShops Collaboration – a virtual meeting space for all stakeholders who are working in Community-Based Participatory Research, including discussions on CBPR-related Jobs, Partnerships, Funding, Staff Exchange, Twinning and Mentoring opportunities.

VA has been involved in many aspects of the project, including developing a set of case studies of existing Science Shops, assembling a collection of RRI Tools for Science Shops, and conducting a global survey on awareness and experience of community-based participatory research. VA was also responsible for communications activities e.g. producing the project’s newsletter,  writing articles and creating dissemination materials and factsheets. We also ran workshops and helped to organise Summer Schools and the final SciShops Symposium.

In order to promote and support Swedish organisations interested in Science Shops, we have also run a number of workshops on Science Shops in Sweden. VA also ran a pop-up Science Shop on 1 July 2019 during Almedalen Week in Visby, Sweden.

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

VA will continue to provide information and advice to organisations in Sweden interested in Science Shops so please get in touch if you would like to know more!

Project Partners

• SYNYO GmbH, Austria, (Project Coordinator)
• Handelsblatt GmbH, Germany
• The University of Hohenheim, Germany
• KPMG, Cyprus
• The National Unions of Students in Europe, Belgium
• Institute of Social Innovations, Lithuania
• University of Oxford, UK
• University of Leuven, Belgium
• Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
• The University of Brescia, Italy
• Leiden University, The Netherlands
• CIMNE, International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Spain
• The Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
• The Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany
• VA (Public & Science), Sweden
• Bay Zoltán Nonprofit Ltd. for Applied Research, Hungary
• SciCo Cyprus, Cyprus

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