Missions: Engagement and Education for Tomorrow

MEET - Missions: Engagement and Education for Tomorrow - is the proposed “European Researchers Night” event and “Researcher at School” programme in Milano and Lombardy (Italy), for the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Night, and for the school years 2024/25 and (partly) 2025/26.

Firmly rooted on a mission-oriented approach and bringing together top R&I and institutional players in Milano area, MEET has the challenging goal to reduce the gap between research and citizens, increasing their sense of trust in science and fostering a participatory approach in which everyone feels involved and benefits from the opportunities offered by scientific citizenship, in an inclusive way.

The project combines a captivating science festival format for the Nights, targeting the public at large, with a two-years structured programme devoted specifically to the schools.

During the Nights, science-based entertainment initiatives, interactive exhibitions, talks and participated moments, such as real-life workshops and science matches, will involve citizens in a journey to discover that R&I could and should be acted and enjoyed by everybody.

At school, MEET brings public engagement initiatives and innovative education approaches, with researchers first-hand experimenting citizen science with pupils, engaging them preferably but not exclusively on the themes of the EU Missions.

The acquisition and recognition by the research community of the role of citizen science as a research methodology will become a lever for an institutional change, supported by MEET.

Overall, MEET will permanently work to stimulate proactive scientific citizenship to engage society and schools, through different tools and methods, in reflecting on grand societal challenges and on how science could shape culture and future habits, finally discovering how much impact could be produced by science in people's daily lives.