WP10. Public Communication & Outreach

General Objectives:

  • Ensure the regular communication to the society of the Consortium goals and achievements, moving the general public closer to scientific research, space missions and the H2020 efforts
  • Monitor the diverse actions identified in this project and in the Consortium Agreement, including educational material and media communications

Responsibles:

Emilio García Gómez-Caro & Ana Tamayo (CSIC)

Participants:

CSIC, OU, IASB, CNRS, INAF, ORB, UCM

Ana Tamayo (UPWARDS Press Officer) and Jorge Vago (ExoMars Project Scientist)

 

Interests:

Bringing science to society is a main goal is the UPWARDS project. An Exploitation, Dissemination, Communications and Education and Public Outreach (D&E+C&EPO) Strategic Plan has been developed to disseminate the knowledge and outcomes generated by UPWARDS, involving and reaching the scientific and education community, the general public and the Media. Five key goals are to:

  • Ensure that scientific community and the general public understand the value of UPWARDS
  • Engage the scientists directly involved in UPWARDS in communicating their results to society
  • Raise general awareness on general public about Mars and the value of the Solar System exploration
  • The coordination among all partners; support each other in communication and outreach related actions
  • Successful implementation and dissemination of the scientific results, technical achievements and the knowledge generated during the project

Impacts:

It will use different outreach channels, to be set up and maintained during the course of the project, and where possible, after the end of the project: 

  • Online Outreach: the natural channel to reach thousands of people around the world.
    • UPWARDS website: The outreach section will be a priority UPWARDS website: high-quality multimedia section, links to results, news, event agenda. The background material with facts about Mars (the planet, its atmosphere and surface, description of the dynamics and photochemistry, of other relevant processes), the missions (with emphasis on the European missions, MEx and ExoMars), and the instruments (and associated observation modes and techniques). Links to the Institute partners and related organisations will be established. Links to ESA data repository will be created. Repository for the new data produced within the UPWARDS project will be created. News and advertisement for conferences will be regularly posted. The website will be hosted and maintained at CSIC.
  • Social Media: The UPWARDS presence on social media will be ensured. Channels such as YouTube and Vimeo will be used to deliver multimedia products, and the project will have presence in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
  • Audio visual productions: The public demands high quality audio visual productions. We will produce a set of short video pieces addressed by the challenging open scientific problems in current Mars research, and the objectives, methodology and results of UPWARDS. These pieces will be the basis for a documentary for internet: “UPWARDS: Re-thinking Mars (towards ExoMars)”. These videos will be distributed in different platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo.
  • Media: The main gateway to the general public. Press releases, announcements, video newsreels and press kits. will be produced for this specific outreach channel. 
  • Material and publications: The design of high quality promotional (e.g. flyers, brochures, factsheets) and educational material (e.g. articles, images and illustrations, visualization of scientific data) is another branch in the communication strategy. It will be produced in printed and online version. This will include papers in scientific and large audience journals (local or national). 
  • Education activities: Raising awareness about Mars, Space Exploration, Solar System, and ESA activities among students will be an important objective of the UPWARDS C&ESP. These will be activities specifically designed to be addressed to educators and students. An example is the PIIISA, which involves high school students in a hands-on science competition supervised by CSIC scientists committed to involving them in real scientific activities, and which is now in its fourth year and continues increasing at great pace in participation and scope. The Open University performs a number of outreach activities, for instance, with the BBC and other world-wide media.
  • Exhibitions: Micro-exhibition including posters, video, hands-on stands interactive discussions, classical films, and conferences by experts (including UPWARDS scientists) will be produced and distributed in science museums, scientific institutions, public buildings, universities and secondary schools. It will be produced in printed and online version and will focus on “Europe prepares for ExoMars” or a similar topic. The list of participant science museums will be specified in the C&ESP of the project. At present we have confirmed the participation of two large science parks, in Granada and in Toulouse.
  • Conferences and live events: UPWARDS brings together expert European teams on Mars research. Conferences about the state-of-art in Martian research will be scheduled in different levels: at institute level (open days, university days), at national level (e.g. Flanders Science and Space weeks in Belgium, Madrid’s Science week and the annual “Noche de los investigadores” - Night of Researchers- initiative across Spain) and in international outreach events. One example is, ESOF Euro Science Open Forum, is a biannual conference on basic science organized by the European Presidency. The next one is this year in Copenhagen and the one after that in 2016.

 

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