Responsible Research and Innovation in Science Education: the IRRESISTIBLE Project

The EU funded IRRESISTIBLE-project (Project Coordinator: Jan Apotheker, University of Groningen, Netherlands) develop activities designed to foster the involvement of high school and elementary students and the public in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). In the project, awareness about RRI is raised in two ways: increasing content knowledge about research by bringing topics of cutting edge research into the program; fostering a discussion among the students on RRI issues about the topics that are introduced. Responsible Research and Innovation focuses on six key issues: Engagement, Gender equality, Science education, Ethics, including societal relevance and acceptability of research and innovation outcomes , Open access, Governance. The project combines formal and informal teaching to familiarize schoolchildren with science. Sixteen partners in ten countries are involved and coordinated by Science LinX. Each participants will establish a community of learners (CoL). The communities include school teachers together with university experts in the field of science communication and science centre staff. Each CoL will develop materials that the teachers will use at their own schools and students will develop an exhibit for a science centre in their own country. Once they have completed their teaching module, the teachers will each train five colleagues, in using the developed modules from the first year. Ultimately, this project will train almost ten thousand pupils to consider the social impact of scientific research.