Irish science shops

THE CONCEPT of a science shop may be well established in countries like the Netherlands, but in Ireland it's still a relative rarity. However, moves are afoot to change this.

The most established science shop is at Queen's University Belfast (QUB). Their science shop was originally set up in the late 1980s, explains manager Eileen Martin.

"The broad aim is to try and open up the knowledge and information resources of the university - in our case to community and voluntary organisations," she says.

"So we work with organisations that have a piece of research to do, but that really wouldn't be in a position to pay for consultancy research. We work with them to try and identify projects that would be suitable for students to carry out towards the end of their degree programme."

The approach makes sense, says Martin, because the students have a research requirement anyway, as part of their course - so the relationship becomes mutually beneficial.

The focus is definitely on the community though, and the science shop has built up links with organisations from many different walks: evaluating childcare policies, developing wildlife resources and piloting skin cancer detection programmes. Links with organisations can also build up over time through a number of contributions by students.

To arrange this, the QUB science shop acts as a broker, cultivating links with the community and also getting the message out to students about opportunities to meet their research requirements while contributing to society, Martin explains.

But what about the quality of the research? That's safeguarded in a number of ways, according to Martin.

"The student projects have to have a supervisor and that's one of the control mechanisms, as well as an external examiner," she says. "Also because the work is part of the student's course, they have a reason to make an effort and to produce a really high-quality piece of work."

The QUB science shop's co-ordinator, Dr Emma McKenna, agrees that there's a challenge in getting the right match.

"The quality of the actual research is something we can't pin down in advance. Some [students] do over the amount of work and some do the bare minimum they can get away with - and you don't ever know that in advance.

"But you can ensure that all partners are into the basic concept - which helps - and, in general, feedback is positive."

Both Martin and McKenna acknowledge the importance of the university's support for the initiative, and they are working to encourage science shop activity at institutions in the Republic, including Dublin City University (DCU) and also at University College Cork (UCC).

The emphasis is on making the university more relevant to society, says Prof Ronnie Munck, DCU's director of civic engagement.

"Our belief would be that the university needs to be embedded in society. It's not an ivory tower. The subtitle of our science shop is 'community knowledge exchange'. That really indicates what it's trying to do."

Certain areas, like environmental studies, lend themselves well to science-shop activities and bring students from different backgrounds together, he notes.

"Environmental science students can be working on carbon emissions; business studies students can be working with local community groups, helping them develop a business plan; computing students can do websites. There's a whole raft of ways in which the university can engage."

As part of their science-shop initiative, DCU recently ran Cairde, a pilot project to look at mental health issues in migrant communities, and they are also working with the community think-tank NorDubCo.

And while Munck welcomes the enthusiasm of partners, he acknowledges that pioneering such programmes in the academic environment requires some changes in the machinery.

"It's hard to change a system like a university, as many have discovered before."