Lead Academy: Académie des Sciences (France)
Chair: Prof. Giancarlo Vecchio
Regional supporting Network: ALLEA
The ALLEA Working Group on Science Education with delegates from some 25 national academies is chaired by Professor Odile Macchi (Académie des Sciences) and functions as the European Regional Council of the science education programme of IAP.
Many European Academies are interested and engaged in fostering science education at the pre-university level, especially through the Regional European science education programme of IAP. It works jointly with the network of ALLEA (All European Academies) which coordinates the European Network of Academies. The programme has as its main objective to help improve the quality of science education (notably: inquiry-based science education) across European nations by sharing relevant experiences. The increasing interest, better funding and stronger impact of projects funded by the European Commission makes such an effort timely: seed projects currently funded by the EU need to be made sustainable. Given that the European subsidiarity principle is applicable in matters of education this cannot happen without strong support for such pilots at national levels: it is here that Academies can play an important role.
Members of the Working Group
Ruth Arnon - Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Maija Katariina Aksela - Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters (CG)
BennÅ Csapó/József Pálinkás - Hungarian Academy of Sciences (alternate)
Maria Duca - Academy of Sciences of Moldova
Carl Figdor - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Florin G. Filip - Romanian Academy
Athanasis Fokas - Academy of Athens
Maksym Galchenko/Stanislav Dovgiy - National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (alternate)
Ingolf Hertel/Randolf Menzel- Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities (alternate)
Sven-Olof Holmgren - The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (CG)
Léo Houziaux - Académie Royale de Belgique
Yücel Kanpolat - The Turkish Academy of Sciences
Andrej Kranjc - Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (CG)
Odile Macchi - Académie des sciences de l’Institut de France, Chair
Peter Mitchell - The Royal Irish Academy (CG)
Søeren Peter Olesen - Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Miljenko Peric - Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Bernhard Plunger - Austrian Academy of Sciences
Stanko PopoviiÄ - Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Dukagjin Pupovci - Kosova Academy of Sciences and Arts
Gerhard Schaefer - German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Svein Sjoberg - Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Giancarlo Vecchio - The National Academy of the Lincei (CG)
Perko Vukotic - Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts
Jan Zima / Jaroslav Pánek - Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (alternates)
Rüdiger Klein - ALLEA (ex officio, ALLEA, until 2012)
(CG indicates “Core Group”)
Recent Activities
Proceedings of the Science Education Conference, May 2014: The African European Mediterranean Academies for Science Education - AEMASE initiative is committed to promoting science outreach to society and to improving the quality and accessibility of science education in schools throughout the North-South region. To achieve these aims, one of AEMASE’s key activities is implementing IBSE in more schools and supporting the continued professional development of science educators in IBSE methodology and practice. Follow the LINK to the recent conference report published by ALLEA in collaboration with the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
In 2012, the Working group met in Rome (Lincei), Helsinki (Global IAP/SEP Conference), Brussels (meeting with the EU Commission). In addition, the Working group Members greatly contributed to the organization of and participated in the Helsinki Conference in May 2012.
Report on Science Education in Europe (2012): The IAP/ALLEA Working Group on Science Education has issued an Executive Summary of its recently published report "A renewal of science education in Europe. Views and Actions of National Academies". The summary emphasizes the necessity to amplify the scope of inquiry-based science education at primary and lower secondary school as well as the quality of science teacher training. It includes recommendations for better interaction between the educational, scientific and corporate communities at the national level in order to raise the awareness of the political stakeholders with regards to the issue of Science Education.
The report itself is based on a survey conducted among the ALLEA Member Academies in 2010 and 2011 identifying the impact of pilot projects in inquiry-based science education (IBSE) across Europe.
It details the views and actions taken by European Academies to advance the renewal of science education and maintain the passion for science and technology among the young, typically drawing on the support of leading scientists from the science academies. It was written in response to a request of the European Commission seeking to establish the national impacts across Europe of the Framework Programme pilot projects in the pursuit of better science education.
Actions by individual Academies: A number of actions are carried in Europe at a national level by a number of science Academies, in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Serbia, Sweden, etc. and can be found on their websites.
In addition, several projects at the European Union level have been promoted by these Academies, such as Pollen and Fibonacci. This latter project (2010-2013), led by the Académie des sciences (France) is described at: www.fibonacci-project.eu