The SUSTAIN project contributes to the challenges, cities and regions throughout Europe face by developing education innovation that surpasses school boundaries and rigid curricula. The project develops innovative, state-of-the-art learning practices to empower pupils and teachers to engage with real-life challenges: challenges that require them to think for themselves, step out of the classroom and connect to professional networks that serve sustainable development in their region. The project strives to: • Spark dialogues on sustainable landscapes between secondary schools, universities and other educational providers, to articulate a sense of urgency for regional sustainable development goals; • Champion the importance of regional bottom-up so-called STEM learning ecosystems to formal and informal education providers, identify key actors and set a shared regional science education agenda, • Deeply engage pupils and their caregivers in three countries with hands-on citizen science work, thus stimulating critical thinking and raising interest in STEM learning and work; • Equip school teachers with the skills to bring together formal and informal learning for citizen science, through a comprehensive professional development programme; • Commit to incremental growth in the excellence of the above initiatives and networks, and build capacity to improve science education through a tailored evaluation, monitoring and peer-learning programme; • Identify good online and offline practices on science education and/or citizen science and disseminate them at regional, national and international scales. Twelve partners, being four universities, six schools, one local stakeholder together with European Science Engagement networks, formed together the SUSTAIN consortium. This consortium actively built STEM learning ecosystems on sustainable landscapes, both at the European level as regionally in the three countries (Spain, Cyprus, and the Netherlands). These interdisciplinary ecosystems consist of secondary school teachers, scientists working in the field of sustainable landscapes, and providers of science education and communication. Geographically, the project has a pan-European perspective, with a regional focus on the Northern Netherlands, the region of Valencia, Spain and Cyprus. Together, the consortium developed three online modules that increase awareness of the urgency to contribute to the local environment. Each module focuses on a specific topic, such as biodiversity and food web structure, water management and bird migration. All modules are based on a regional challenge, such as decreasing meadow bird population (Netherlands), falling water levels (Spain) and illegal bird trapping for consumption (Cyprus). Included in the three online modules are materials on academic skills to foster critical thinking (as essential 21st century skills) by secondary school pupils, and webinars to support the teachers while running the modules. With these modules, pupils learn to analyse complex social relevant topics as sustainable landscapes, develop a critical attitude and form their own opinions. In addition, they met role models and learned to appreciate the role of science in society. Based on their experience, the consortium wrote a roadmap on setting up a STEM learning ecosystem on sustainable landscapes. The consortium, together with the NUCLEUS project and members of the EUSEA network, co-created an online platform that showcases a number of recommended formats of activities designed to encourage participatory science engagement, showing a range of possibilities and some practical examples, which can be implemented by teachers across Europe. The platform also offers an overview of valuable toolkits and good reads related to science communication and public engagement. This platform turns out to be a lively and active platform that will keep on developing - both with off- and online interactive formats.

RESBIOS aims to deeply embedding RRI practices within 4 RPOs in the field of Biosciences from 4 European countries, through the implementation of RRI Grounding Actions (GAs), to achieve sustainable institutional changes in the various institutions, related to RRI keys, according the MoRRI indicators and Sustainable Development Goals. The project is focused on the biosciences sector which is one of the crossroads in the relations between science and society. The project will set a mutual learning environment including the four partners implementing GAs (“RRI beginners”), some “RRI mentors” having already participated in a EU project about RRI in biosciences, partners experienced in Evaluation and Technical assistance, an international scientific Advisory Board, representatives of other EU projects, and representatives of Quadruple Helix actors. The GAs will be structured in three strands, respectively aimed at: developing a self reflection on the change needs in the organisation and dialoguing with the potentially involved stakeholders for co-designing the experiments (co-reflexive strand); implementing the GAs in connection with societal actors in the territory and inside the research organisations (pro-active strand); developing permanent spaces of integration with society, implementing a set of institutional change inside the research organisation and reframing its governance settings (Institutional strand). An adequate management system, support to implementation and mutual learning, evaluation, communication and dissemination activities will ensure smooth project implementation. RESBIOS is composed of 9 WPs: WP1 Ethics Requirements; WP2 Co-design of GAs; WP3 GAs on Education; WP4 GAs on Open Access and Ethics; WP5 GAs on Citizens engagement and Gender equality; WP6 Supporting Institutional Change; WP7 Mutual Learning and Evaluation; WP8 Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation; WP9 Management. The project involves 12 partners from 11 European countries.

The vision of Our Space Our Future (OurSpace) is a society that enables and empowers all students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability or socio-economic background, to consider a career related to space science as a relevant, attainable and exciting aspiration for their future. The space industry in Europe is strong and growing, offering innovative services and providing huge benefits across science, the economy, government and society . The space industry meets societal challenges, provides jobs and supports industrial growth and the standards of excellence within industry and research reinforces Europe as an autonomous, global leader in the sector. The OurSpace rationale is based on emphasis of these positive effects of STEM choices, not only for employment and the economy, but also the wider benefits of STEM and space science education for technical and intellectual progress, and on the wider skills and knowledge base of the public. Each of the consortium partners brings a unique breadth of experience and skills in space communication, stakeholder engagement, policy advice and direct experience of working with schools and families. The OurSpace project will design and run sustainable education and outreach activities, and take these out into communities, ensuring that underserved audiences are embraced and integrated into the project. OurSpace will engage over 60,000 people across the programme, with a longitudinal evaluation study that explores improved scientific literacy, interest and confidence in space science themes and assesses the impact on space-related and STEM choices and career aspirations of 5,000 directly-participating students across 4 delivery countries.

The PERFORM consortium aims to investigate the effects of the use of innovative science education methods based on performing arts in fostering young peoples’ motivations and engagement with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in selected secondary schools in France, Spain and the United Kingdom. A considerable percentage of young people in Europe is not interested in STEM careers mainly because they perceive that they lack the skills to deal with such topics. Such negative perceptions discourage adolescents from investing time in learning about science and undervalue the role of science in society. Addressing the challenge of engaging young people in STEM has never been more urgent in Europe in order to avoid loss of scientific talent and to ensure future innovation capability, excellence and competitiveness. PERFORM takes action to overcome the remaining distance between young people and science and to break the unidirectional model of scientific knowledge transfer. PERFORM will explore a creative, participatory educational process on STEM through the use of scenic arts with secondary school students, their teachers and early career researchers, who will get actively involved in experiencing science. They will also reflect on their own role in the interaction between science and society, and the values embedded in Responsible Research and Innovation. PERFORM will analyse how such human-centred, science-arts educational approach contributes to foster girls’ and boys’ motivations towards science learning and strengthen the transversal competences they will need for STEM careers and jobs. The education and communication skills required for teachers and researchers to further replicate the educational process will be explored and addressed in specific training toolkits. The project dissemination will be fulfilled by ensuring strong science-policy links and by linking PERFORM with Scientix.