Panel discussion on theme „ Popularization of science- why Croatia need it?“ which was held on April the 4th 2013 in the ceremony room of Institut Ruđer Bošković ( IRB) has gathered a number of scienties, popularizers of sciens as well as prominent entrepreneurs and communication proffesionals. Panel discussion was supported by Ministry of science and technology, University of Zagreb and the city of Zagreb. Special guest was Robert Firmhofer, director of Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw, also the president of the European network of science centers and museums.
In the first part of event all seven participants held a ten- minute presentation on the popularization of science from their proffesional life’s perspective.
Dunja Potočnik gave an overview of interesting statistics about the interest of young people in science and concluded:
„Research shows that young people of the age of 14 decide that they don’t want to study, and what they don’t want to be in future life. Therefore, popularization of science should primarily focus on children between the ages of 10 and 14.“
Ivanka Jerić from Institute Ruđer Bošković talked about a number of EU project in Institute Ruđer Boškovoć, and emphasized the obligation of scientists to communicate about their work with the public, especially when the work is financed by public funds. She emphasized that Institute Ruđer Boškovoć through structure project Open scientific infrastructure platform for innovative applications in economy and society, planning to enhance cooperation with economy and wider academic and research community by opening it’s infrastructure and valuable capital equipment and existing intellectual capital.
Robert Firmhofer emphasis the importance of scientific centers of society, informal learning, fusion of science and the economy and increasing interest of the younger generation in science. Beside the example of very successful Science Centre Kopernik in Warsaw, which is visited by over a million people, Firmhofer showed European projects that have resulted major public interest, and managed popularizaton of science to raise to a higher level.
Entrepreneur and business angel, Saša Cvetojević has told that he considers that croatian science must stop perceiving money as something bad and ugly, and they need to find quality way of communicating with the economy. Cvetojević belives that Croatia can become a country of knowledge in which knowledge can be used for quality projects and export products.
Communication expert, Zrinka Makovac said that scientists can make a significant improvement in public perception of science if they communicate better with the help of people from the industry.
Marko Košiček’s presentation, scientists from Institute Ruđer Bošković, News Competition winner and prominent popularizer of science, has shown the world popularization of the science inside. Košiček talked about specific amounts and pointed out that 83 percent of the funds which implement the programs and activities comes from outside Croatia.
The last speaker, Saša Zelenika who is the deputy of Minister of science, education and sports, said that the education system was not accompanied by changes in the economy and that we should give more importance to certain professions in croatian labor market, which will soon become part of the European Union.
During the discussion that started, many scientists, popularizer of science, businessmen and students were voiced directly from the hall and through the social networks. An interesting discussion has shown different opinions on how popularizing science should look like. All involved persons agreed that investment in science is an imperative for croatian economic progress.