Bridging the gap between revolutionary scientific research and society
For the past thirty years, the EU-funded Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme has nurtured the development of new scientific ideas. Its goal is to revolutionise our society via high-risk, long-term, multidisciplinary and collaborative frontier research and innovation, ranging from bionic hands to quantum computers and new materials. However, effective communication and dissemination campaigns are needed to increase understanding and uptake of such news technologies from the disparate players in our society, such as scientists, the general public, policy makers and investors. This is the main goal of the FET project FETFX, for which the kick-off meeting was held from January 31 to February 1 at the headquarters of Agenzia per La Promozione Della Ricerca Europea (APRE) in Rome. FETFX is a project funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 FET-Open Coordination and Support Action (CSA) programme. It will support FET projects in their communication and outreach activities, hence increasing their influence and impact on society. It will continue the legacy of the FET project EFFECT, which ran from 2017 to 2018 with the aim of providing easy-to-understand contents for the broad public. Moreover, a set of online and offline engagement activities will be launched to stimulate debate regarding the future of emerging technologies. Finally, FETFX will join forces with the rest of the FET CSA programmes to further boost the outreach potential of the FET programme and its community. FETFX’s consortium consists of four partners specialised in public science communication, research and innovation. These are APRE (project’s coordinator), Fondazione iCons, Zabala Innovation Consulting and eutema. The project started in January 2019 and will run for 2 years and 6 months. It has received funding under Grant Agreement n°824753.
Keywords
future and emerging technologies, technology, research, innovation