Researchers at Schools

The second edition of the Ciência di Noz Manera (CNM) programme is supported by the RAISE consortium. Thanks to the funding from the European Commission (under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), obtained by the consortium, this edition will be able to reach even more students.

CNM is coordinated by a team of five science communicators and coordinators, working in two natural sciences research institutes – Champalimaud Foundation (CF) and Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM).

In addition to supporting the coordination of the programme, scientists from the iMM will also actively participate in the programme. In this 2nd edition, we are not only working with more scientists, but we are already collaborating with three schools identified by the Portuguese government as located within educational territories of priority intervention (TEIP) – Escola Pedro D’Orey da Cunha, Escola Dr. Azevedo Neves and Escola Marquesa de Alorna, located in the Greater Lisbon area given the physical proximity to research institutions.

The target public of the 2nd edition of CNM are students from year 8 since at the end of the year 9 the students have to choose which area to follow (Sciences, Humanities, Arts, Economy, or a Technical-professional School). By working with year 8 students we also guarantee that most of them are probably still studying in the same school for the following school year, which makes it logistically more feasible for them to participate in the European Researchers’ Night which, in 2023 will take place on September 29th.

In the 2nd edition: in phases I and II, in total more than 300 students from the three schools participated, and for the implementation of the programme we had more than 50 scientists from CF and iMM. For phase III, we expect to have more than 60 students attending the mentoring sessions, provided by the 19 scientists available.

In the 2022/2023 edition CNM is taking place between January and June, and it is again organized in three phases:

• Phase I – Seminars: in school scientists present their research experience and their academic path to all students. Duration is around 60 to 90 minutes.
• Phase II – Hands-on scientific workshops: scientists organise hands-on experiments in their own institution for the students to visit. Duration of around 3 hours.
• Phase III – Mentoring sessions: at school the scientists carry out mentoring sessions with a small group of students (4-5 students per mentor) and guide them in the development of a project in an area of their interest. During this phase they also produce objects/materials through a co-creation process between students, scientists and other collaborators, to be presented at the European Researchers’ Night. Duration of 5 to 6 sessions, each of 60 to 90 minutes.

For this second edition, and after these three phases, a summer camp may also be organized, as an additional period of co-creation for the presentation in the European Researchers’ Night.

A new feature of this second edition, based on the feedback received in the pilot year, was the training for scientists, which was provided by the consortium partner Native Scientists, who held two training webinars. The first one was about science communication, while the second one was about the mentoring sessions, open to all scientists involved in the CNM.

So far, phase I and II of the programme have already taken place. Phase III starts on the 26th of April, in all schools.

Here are some good moments of what has happened so far.

Funded by the European Commission. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.