Pressemitteilung

"Sci-Tech - Couldn't be without it!"

Launch of a Major European Outreach Programme

13. März 2002

Seven of Europe's leading Research Organizations [1] launch joint outreach programme for the European Science and Technology Week at the Technopolis Museum in Brussels on 22 March. Their aim is to show Europeans how today's society couldn't be without fundamental research .

Could you imagine life without mobile phones, cars, CD players, TV, refrigerators, computers, the internet and the World Wide Web, antibiotics, vitamins, anaesthetics, vaccination, heating, pampers, nylon stockings, glue, bar codes, metal detectors, contact lenses, modems, laser printers, digital cameras, gameboys, play stations...? Technology is everywhere and used by everyone in today's society, but how many Europeans suspect that without studies on the structure of the atom, lasers would not exist, and neither would CD players? Most do not realise that most things they couldn't be without have required years of fundamental research .

To fill this knowledge gap, the leading Research Organizations in Europe [1], with the support of the research directorate of the European Commission, have joined forces to inform Europeans how technology couldn't be without science, and how science can no longer progress without technology. The project is called...... Sci-Tech - Couldn't be without it!

Sci-Tech - Couldn't be without it! invites Europeans to vote online in a survey to identify the top ten technologies they can't live without. It will show them through a dynamic and entertaining Web space where these top technologies really come from, and it will reveal their intimate links with research. Teaching kits will be developed to explain to students how their favourite gadgets actually work, and how a career in science can contribute to inventions that future generations couldn't be without. The results of the survey will be presented as a series of quiz shows live on the Internet during the Science Week, from 4 to 10 November.

Sci-tech - Couldn't be without it! will be launched on Friday 22 March at 18:30 at the Technopolis Science Museum in Brussels, coinciding with the official inauguration of CERN's travelling exhibition "E=mc 2 - When energy becomes matter". The exhibition will stay at Technopolis until 21 July. CERN Director General, Luciano Maiani, and European Commissioner for Research, Philippe Busquin, will open the event with speeches underlining the importance of joining efforts for science education and outreach in Europe. A tour of the exhibition and a demonstration of the project's hot site for cool science will follow, and the event will be brought to a close with a "Science in the Pub" discussion on the subject of modern physics and philosophy, complete with musical intermezzo and buffet.

* Access the Couldn't be without it! online voting and web resources at: www.cern.ch/sci-tech
* Confirm your presence at the Technopolis event before Wed. March 20 by fax to: +32-(0)15-34 20 10
* To reach Technopolis take exit 10 (Mechelen-Zuid) on motorway E19 (Bruxelles-Anvers).
* For more information on the exhibition, contact Veronique de Man: veronique@technopolis.be; Tel. +32-15-34 2020
* For more information on Couldn't be without it! contact the executive coordinator: monica.de.pasquale@cern.ch; Tel. +41 22 767 3586

Endnoten

[1]  CERN , the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, ESA , the European Space Agency, ESO , the European Southern Observatory, EMBL , the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EFDA , the European Fusion Development Agreement, ESRF , the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and ILL , Institut Laue-Langevin. These organizations have recently teamed up to form EIROFORUM, whose Working Group on Outreach and Educationis working with the European Union to provide a bridge between the organisations, the European Union and the citizens of Europe. The activities of the Working Group also contribute to the creation of the European Research Area.

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