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InSPIRES projekt
About InSPIRES
Funding: European Commission - Horizon 2020
Coordination: Barcelona Institute for Global Health, ISGlobal
Goals:
InSPIRES brings together civil society, practitioners and other stakeholders from across and beyond Europe to co-design, jointly pilot, implement and roll out innovative models for Science Shops. The InSPIRES models integrate Responsible Research and Innovation, Open Science and Impact Evaluation as part of their DNA in order to open the research process up in a more strategic way.
Concentrating most of its efforts on Research & Innovation in the health and environmental sectors, giving special attention to gender parity and vulnerable groups (women, the elderly, adolescents, migrants and refugees), InSPIRES brings Science Cafés and other public engagement initiatives into its models together with a “glocal” international focus, for more inclusive, context relevant and culturally adapted community-based participatory research and innovation.
InSPIRES outcomes:
give evidence and support political bodies and decision-makers, in order to propose changes in local, regional, national and international policies;
nurture the debate about the place and role of society in science, encouraging the systematic and ethical involvement of civil society actors and their societal concerns in the research and innovation processes, and
support the development of new Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Open Science (OSc) strategies and guidelines, in the context of safe spaces to involve and engage civil society in the whole science process.
About the project:
The challenge to be addressed by our proposal has a multidisciplinary aspect, since different, but related research areas are tackled from a complex perspective. A growing body of evidence suggests correlation between air pollution, especially particulate matter (PM) concentrations, and morbidity/mortality associated with cardio-respiratory diseases. However, available statistics reflect merely data from studies conducted in North America and Western Europe, while data from Eastern-Central Europe area are scarcely available even on a local scale. Several specific factors – demographic, genetic, meteorological and other local factors – can determine health effects of airborne particles. Air quality monitoring data suggest that people of Eastern-Central Europe inhabit an area with higher air pollution indexes compared to other European territories.
The aim of our project is to contribute to the development of open science strategies in Harghita County, by tackling a participatory approach to point out, refine and implement a pilot research study concerning possible public health aspects of air pollution. Hence, the idea of the present research project concerning studies on fog and precipitation physical-chemical pollution, microbial load, air quality and health correlations on regional scale has been formulated. Local partnerships with stakeholders were established during previous projects (e.g. SPARKS) and further partnerships are going to be signed with stakeholders directly or indirectly connected to the current participatory research project.
The major expected impacts are as follows:
collection and analysis of important data (fog, precipitation, microbiological) regarding the local atmospheric pollution and the possible effects on human health
improve the scientific understanding of the above mentioned interactions
creation and development of a platform for science shops
initiating communication between key institutions in this area as well as the evolvement of NGOs
build the capacity of social actors and policy makers to promote RRI according to local needs and interests
public awareness raising and engagement on environmental and health problems, giving special attention to vulnerable groups (represented by “Mothers from Ciuc” Association, Caritas Associations)
ACTIVITIES
Pilot research project: Participatory study of chemical and biological characteristics and public health aspects of fog and precipitations in closed basins of Harghita County
physico-chemical characterization of fog and precipitation, HYSPLIT modelling
microbiological characterization (metagenomics approach)
determination of complex interactions and public health aspects
Participatory actions: Science shop development and inclusion of local actors, policy makers, NGOs
Reverse science café
1 Thematic workshops with local actors: physico-chemical load
2 Thematic workshops with local actors: microbiological load
3 Thematic workshops with local actors: complex interactions and public health aspects
Science café – dissemination of project results
Policy recommendations elaboration
Dissemination and research communication
1 press conference project kick-off
Press release with research project results
1 Open Lab-day
Final press conference presenting policy recommendation
Online media presence on webpage, Facebook page, Instagram