| abstract: |
This ambitious SiS CATALYST project seeks to identify how children can be change agents in the Science and Society relationship, and from this starting point, to indicate how they can be catalysts in the longer term solutions to the grand challenges faced by society - their future. It will contextual this in Global, European, national, regional and local arenas. The Action Plan involves refining Case Studies of replicable and scalable SiS activities for children with an associated pan European benchmarking and mutual agreement process, which will provide vehicles for strategic and political alignment, as well as shared assessment tools.
These core WPs will be enriched by WPs which systematically engage three critical groups: young people, students and Key Players. The focus will be on children with ability, who are currently least likely to progress to study science in post secondary education. It will also combine the science and society agenda with the social inclusion agenda through entrepreneurship as well as considering the ethics of activities.
The capturing the mutual learning will be priortised and robustly disseminating and communicating this in regional, national, European arenas and beyond, specifically targeting newcomers. The totality of the activities of the consortium will be externally evaluated and all actors will be assisted to reflect on the ‘Partnership Learning’ that has occurred. This will be captured as an example of mobilising mutual learning for future European initiatives.
Key to the project will be the active participation of young people, exploring their perceptions and understanding of science. Learning from them as the scientists of the future. The Action Plan will be systematically promoted in Europe and beyond, with the goal of having at least 20 Ministers for Education presenting the same certificates to children in 20 countries in the final year and a Children’s Gateway to the website of every University in the World |
