Date: November 19th and 20th 2019
Venue: Warsaw, Poland
Description
On November 19th and 20th, 2019 the third and final workshop of the Social Lab EURATOM took place in Warsaw, Poland. As all of the three pilot actions were finished prior to this final workshop, the Social Lab team aimed for focussing on reflection and mutual learning amongst the participants.
On the first day participants gathered at the NCBJ facility in Świerk, close to the polish capital of Warsaw. After a brief welcome by the Social Lab team, participants were doing a recap of the previous workshops in a walkshop format. This was followed up by a presentation on each of the pilot actions that have been invented and refined by the participants over the course of the Social Lab.
The reflection on these pilots was aiming towards tackling the question how these activities could help to encourage change towards implementing RRI in the world of EURATOM. The participants assessed their work critically, stressing their individual learning experience, but in turn, pointing out that those actions have only been first steps towards the defined goal of implementing RRI.
To get closer towards realising this, participants suggested a couple of policy recommendations. Those include areas of Public Engagement by awareness raising towards the general public and the policy makers, as well as Science Education by increasing funds for education, improve the education of those who teach, and finally to create feedback loops to foster mutual exchange and learning amongst them.
Updates on pilot action 2 “Nuclear Dating”
On September 19th and 20th Catrinel Turcanu & Michèle Coeck, from SCK•CEN hosted the very first edition of “Nuclear Dating”. The venue was set in the Hard Rock Café Brussels to disrupt the usual atmosphere of conference room settings. The idea of this event evolved together with other experts from the nuclear field such as Matthias Bruchhausen (JRC Petten), Victor Esteban-Gran (European Commission), Marc Poumadere (Institut Symlog), and Jörg Starflinger (University of Stuttgart). Helmut Hönigmayer (NewHoRRIzon) provided expertise on RRI to the event.
In the light of research becoming ever more interdisciplinary, “Nuclear Dating” twinned scientists from different disciplines with the purpose of sharing insights on, and approaches to, research on ionising radiation and nuclear technology. Successful sharing should connect and integrate different perspectives and forms of knowledge, stimulate critical thinking and possibly lead to the development of new projects.
The aim was that participants receive an introduction to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), to reflect on how the participants research can benefit from RRI and to explore together with other young scientists’ ways to collaborate with researchers outside your own discipline. Furthermore, the event aimed at helping early career researchers to imagine a project where collaboration will be of mutual benefit to several disciplines, and explore opportunities for joint publications.
Additional information can be found here.
