Civil Society Organizations

The ORION research funding partner in Spain, the Carlos III Health Institute (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), launched last January an award for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in Health Research. The award - #RRIhealthawards, seeks to recognise, support, promote and disseminate the work of ISCIII funded Health Research Institutes to incorporate the principles of RRI in their activities and projects. The call was open to Spanish Health Research Institutes that have developed significant institutional RRI activities during 2019.

We are very saddened by the news that Professor Michael Wakelam, Director of Babraham Institute, has passed away. His loss is tragic for the research community and he will be deeply missed by the entire ORION Open Science EU-project team.

What does the public think about the new genome editing technology CRISPR and how should we talk about it? The ORION project has organised public dialogues in the Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and the UK to find out. The aim with the public dialogues was to discuss the risks and opportunities of this disruptive technology and identify any concerns the public might have.

On 9 March the final ORION Open Science roundtable was organised by the ORION partner JCMM in Brno, Czech Republic. This was the final leg in the JCMM co-creation scheme which was launched in June 2018 debating the Open Science framework with representatives from academia, local government, business, NGOs, students and the general public.

The MELTIC project “Ideas MELting pot for TIC and Health Science for Citzens in Small communities” coordinated by the ORION partner Carlos III National Health Institute, ISCIII , is the winner of the ORION call for Novel Co-creation Initiatives after competing against eleven other European project proposals. The project will improve the quality of life for EU citizens in small communities by co-creating and developing ICT health services with stakeholders.

If there was a medicine that could stop physical ageing – would you take it? Artist Emilia Tikka’s installation, which is showcased at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm, uses this idea to stage a vision of the future. The artwork is the result of her collaboration with researchers in the field of genome editing. The exhibition was opened with a seminar on 23 January 2020.

Due to the success and popularity of the ORION MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) from last year, an improved version of the course will run again. The ORION MOOC for Open Science in the Life Sciences 2.0 will be live from February 10th 2020. Registration is now open!

At the beginning of November 2019, the Berlin Science Week connected science communities with the general public. Luiza Bengtsson and Emma Harris from the ORION Training team at Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) held an Open Science workshop and discussed "Why everyone should care about open science".

“What an exciting potential future for science!” commented one of the participants in the ORION MOOC for Open Science in Life Sciences, when discussing what they had learnt from the course. The ORION MOOC course ran for six weeks from October-November 2019 and was open for anyone interested in Open Science. A new MOOC will run again in early 2020.

That’s what we hope to find out through a series of public dialogues on genome editing in the ORION partnering countries Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and the UK. The aim with the public dialogues is to discuss the risks and opportunities of disruptive technologies and identify any concerns the public might have.