The PARRISE consortium had its final, public conference in August 2017, in Dublin, Ireland. The event was coupled with the biennial conference of the “European Science Education Research Association” (ESERA 2017), thus providing the opportunity to many science educators and researchers from around the world to participate in both events.  As a result, the PARRISE final conference, titled “Science & Society in Education: Promoting Responsible Research & Innovation through Science Education” attracted around 140 delegates (academics, researchers, science teachers, and policy makers) from Europe, Asia, the USA, and Australia.

Bringing science and society to the science classroom was the challenge of the PARRISE project partners when the project kicked off, almost four years ago. The 18 PARRISE partners from 11 countries embarked on a long journey, to investigate how to integrate “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) in Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programmes for primary and secondary science teachers. For this purpose, the “Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning” (SSIBL) pedagogical approach was developed, tested, revised and validated by the PARRISE partners during two rounds of TPD programmes.

During the PARRISE final conference in Dublin, the innovative SSIBL approach was presented in relation to the goals and the philosophy of the PARRISE project.  At the same time, the participants discussed the main outcomes of the project and deliberated on the implications of the PARRISE work about the integration of RRI ideas in teachers’ professional development but also in student learning practices. In addition, a set of parallel workshops was organized focusing on different PARRISE-related topics, such as “Raising authentic questions”, “Mapping controversies”, “Arguments in motion”, “Effective TPD culture”, and “Climate schools and climate regions”. Finally, PARRISE teacher educators had the opportunity to present and discuss their RRI TPD models, and PARRISE teachers had the opportunity to present the SSIBL learning materials they had developed during a lively poster session.

The highlight of the final PARRISE conference was two panel discussions. The first panel discussion focused on the opportunities and challenges of the SSIBL pedagogical framework and was coordinated by Dr. Eleni A. Kyza, Associate Professor at the Cyprus University of Technology and a member of the PARRISE consortium.  The invited speakers participating in this panel discussion were Dr. Ralph Levinson (Institute of Education-UCL, PARRISE), Dr. René von Schomberg (European Commission), Dr. Per-Edvin Persson (Consultant of Science Centres and Museums, Finland), and Professor Russell Tytler (PARRISE External Advisory Board, Deakin University, Australia).

The second panel discussion deliberated on the future of RRI in education and was moderated by the coordinator of the PARRISE project, Dr. Marie-Christine Knippels (Utrecht University, Netherlands). The invited speakers participating in this second panel discussion, were Stalo Koukouma, a Chemistry Education Inspector at the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, Professor Dr. Doris Jorde (PARRISE External Advisory Board, University of Oslo, Norway), Dr. Peter Gray (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway), Associate Professor Pedro Reis (University of Lisbon, Portugal), and the PARRISE Project Officer at the European Commission, Mrs. Maria Karamitrou.

Overall, the PARRISE final conference contributed to a better understanding of the ideas of RRI. Through the various activities of the conference, key issues emerged about how RRI issues can be addressed through science education activities at the primary and secondary education levels.

Download the Conference Report (pdf)

View the Conference Posters

Download the Conference Final Program (pdf)

Download the Conference booklet (pdf)