| abstract: |
The main goals and objectives of Researchers’ Night in Estonia are to enhance public recognition of researchers and their role in local Estonian society and in Europe, to establish a social bond between researchers and citizens and to introduce Estonian research areas to a wider audience. This will be achieved by the means of active communication between researchers and the public. Estonia is a small country (about 1.3 M inhabitants), but there are 67.000 students studying at 47 universities in Estonia (the highest percentage in Europe). Yet -connected with the lack of information and the direct connections to or role models from the community of researchers, the interest of students for the careers in science or engineering falls more and more. Activities of the proposed project are planned taking into account different problems raised by documents of the European Commission and the trends described in Eurobarometer Surveys. The Researchers’ Night message will be delivered to various social groups (children, students, adults, seniors, decision makers, politicians etc.), but the youngsters are the main target group. The mass media, including Estonian National Television will be involved before, during and after the Researchers’ Night, amplifying the ideas of the project. Researchers’ Night is planned as a series of the attractive open public events, social and cultural activities in different cities of Estonia on September 28, 2007. |
