The 2nd consortium meeting of the iMermaid project was held in Athens, on 15 – 16 November, hosted by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) – a project partner organization. This was an ideal moment for a constructive dialogue for further alignment on the activities, as partners presented progress so far in the first 6 months of the project.
H2O-People highlighted its work assessing the societal change of the research within iMermaid, and held a “conversation by feet” with project partners on societal impact of research at large. It was agreed that capacity building is essential for creating societal impact within and beyond an EU-funded research project. It was also noted that societal impact is also about new collaborations generated from interactions among the project partners.
Participants from EJWP5 presented their recommendations on science communication through social media as a project within the iMermaid project during the 2nd consortium meeting held in Athens, on 15 – 16 November. The aim of the project of EJWP was to set up a plan and proposal to use a social media campaign to influence social perception on the chemical pollution of Chemicals of Emerging Concern in the Mediterranean Sea. The participants have been working on this project since the training week in Croatia last September.
Core recommendations of the EJWP5 social media plan also include the creation of storytelling posts for different social media channels, and how to engage communities affected by chemical marine pollution. EJWP5 project participants strongly recommended that the social media campaigns need to not only ask opinions of the local populations, but share with them the “why” and the “how” as part of the story.
“The iMERMAID partners were really happy with the work and ideas of the EJWP participants. They gave thorough engaging presentations and made the social media campaign and the societal influencing as a responsibility of all of us! We will take their ideas, and you will see it soon online on the accounts of iMERMAID,” Naomi Timmer, WP1 lead and client of the project.