PLACES

SiS WG MeetingBrussels, 2nd September 2014

PLACES: ERRIN bits

• Kick off conference (Bxl, Oct 2010)• 1st conference policy symposium (Paris, Sept 2011)• Science cities workshops (10)• Capacity building sessions (11)• 3rd annual conference (Torino, June 2013)• Studies, reports, workshops• Last reports: LAP analysis and synthesis workshop (Jan

2014) report• Recommendations from WP 7

Final conference

• Bremen, March 2014• Universum science centre and site visits• +/- 300 participants• Declaration: 47 cities signed

PLACES Declaration

Recommendations by ERRIN

• Recommendation #1: The PLACES Declaration should be publicised and the important role of science in developing strong cities and regions in Europe should be acknowledged by the European Commission. Although a European City of Scientific Culture involves bottom-up thinking and actions, it must also be supported by top-down policies and thinking from a European perspective.

• Recommendation #2: All cities that strive to be Cities of Scientific Culture should involve citizens in the design and implementation of their City of Scientific Culture project. A City of Scientific Culture should strive to retain talents. To this end, a City of Scientific Culture creates a favourable political, democratic, economic and social environment to its citizens and invests in research, innovation and welfare that will encourage talents to stay or move there.

Recommendations by ERRIN (2)• Recommendation #3: Science communication institutions should

investigate what kind of unique and best fitting service they could offer to the city administration that could make the collaboration between the science communication institution and the municipality more solid and longer-lasting and also raise the profile of the institution in the eyes of the citizens.

• Recommendation #4: Local/regional administrations should take the political lead of strategy design towards the City of Scientific Culture and should develop strong partnerships to advise on strategy design but also be able to implement the strategy. Without a solid political support, the city cannot achieve this goal.

• Recommendation #5: Future European programmes should build on the PLACES project to support the implementation of SWAFS and RRI through cities and region s that have identified themselves as ‘science friendly’ via their engagement in the PLACES project.

Sustainability, new proposal

• Consortium partner networks want to keep the community alive

• Meeting held in May 2014• Perugia annual conference in 2015 (own travel costs)• No call open to set up a similar constellation• SWAFS 2016-2017? To encourage the COM to support

the sustainability of a valuable community• OPEN to run for 2 years by Ecsite• New proposal on pan-European network of science cafes• ERRIN as leader of policy recommendations• No regional involvement