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In this edition: making a comic from research results, Plan S and many other impact stories and events, including the upcoming AESIS Course in Leuven!  
Calender
22 November 2018
28 - 30 November, 2018

5 December 2018
24-27 February 2019

3-5 April, 2019
6-7 June, 2019
News
The United Nations Academic Impact announces the creation of SDG Hubs

The United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) initiative started in 2010 with the purpose of connecting Higher Education Institutions with the United Nations aiming at supporting the former’s contribution to the realization of the U.N’s goals such as sustainability, conflict resolution, protection of human rights etc.

On October 24th , the UNAI announced the creation of SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Hubs. The SDG Hubs are Higher Education Institutions which serve as bright examples for best practices in promoting a certain SDG. 

"UNAI members have been at the forefront of advancing the 2030 Agenda, and the following universities have been selected as the inaugural class of UNAI SDG Hubs for their innovation, dynamism and commitment to educating future generations about sustainability.  In the coming weeks we will be profiling each of the schools and providing more information on their activities and research for their respective Sustainable Development Goals."

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Athens is the European Capital of Innovation 2018
When somebody hears about Athens usually what comes to mind is warm weather, delicious food and nice strolls around historical monuments such as the the Parthenon. Athens is not easily associated with modernity and innovation. Despite this image, Athens was awarded the title of the European Capital of Innovation, 2018 by the European Commission. The Greek capital was hit by the financial crisis and had to find ways to overcome immense social challenges stemming from austerity measures in combination with being at the epicenter of the refugee crisis. 
 
The city, as Commissioner Carlos Modeas put it during the award ceremony in Lisbon "stands out as an example that a city facing many challenges can achieve great things. Through innovation, Athens has found new purpose to turn around the economic and social crisis. It is proof that it's not the difficulties but how you raise yourself above them that matters".

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How to translate your research into a comic 
Researchers and Scientists are more and more required to communicate and disseminate the findings of their research not only to other scientists from other disciplines but also to a broader audience which does not necessarily has deep scientific knowledge. This task can be quite challenging for scientists. 

To make this task easier, Jan Friesen and Skander Elleuche have developed a method that makes it possible to translate complex scientific publications into a comic format. 


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The cOAlition S Initiative

In September 2018 a group of 11 national research organizations with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council, launched the cOAlition S. The aim of this initiative is to ensure that by 2020, the results of publicly funded research will be published in Journals complying with the principle of Open Access. The Plan S consists of 10 principles. In the beginning of November two major biomedical research funders, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced their endorsement to Plan S. 

Despite its backing by major Funding Bodies, not everyone is happy with plan S. Voices of concern have been raised in the form of an open letter by around 600 scientists protesting against it. 
 
Wastewater Treatment does not have to be unpleasant to see

Wastewater: nobody wants to see wastewater treatment processes in their everyday life. However clean water is a human need. Professor Yaqian Zhao at University College Dublin School of Civil Engineering and his colleagues have found a pioneering way to construct an artificial wetland which is aesthatically pleasing, purifies water and can support the growth of plants. 

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FROM OUR MEMBERS
NSF funds a new collaborative center to demonstrate the societal impacts of research
Susan Renoe (Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research, Extension & Engagement at the University of Missouri)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $5.2 million grant to fund the Center for Advancing the Societal Impacts of Research (ARIS). The ARIS Center is housed at the University of Missouri and will work with scientists and engagement practitioners to build capacity, advance scholarship, grow partnerships and provide resources to help them engage with and demonstrate the impact of research in their communities and society.
A key focus and task of ARIS will include collaborating with international colleagues to share practices and resources around societal impacts. ARIS will spur this collaboration through the development of research proposals, publications, and programs that share evidence-based practices for enhancing societal impact of research. 
Additionally, ARIS has named David Phipps, Executive Director Research and Innovation Services, York University (Canada), and Leonie van Drooge Senior Research, Rathenau Institute (Netherlands) as international representatives on the ARIS Board of Advisors.
National partners and institutions for the ARIS Center include: Brown University, Duke University, Iowa State University, Madison Area Technical College, Michigan State University, Northeastern University, Northwestern University, Oregon State University, Rutgers University and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Board of Advisors for the new Center includes members from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Universities, California State-Monterey Bay, the Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education, the Council on Undergraduate Research, the Kavli Foundation, NASA, Northern Illinois University, the Rathenau Institute (Netherlands), Spelman College, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Western Washington University, and York University (Canada) among others.
The Fabric of My Life
Marie Louise Bech Nosch (Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen)

The Fabric of My Life (FABRIC) is a collaborative project between universities and cultural institutions in Denmark, Greece and Germany with the aim to innovate and test new methods in the concerning migration history, to empower refugee women and to train cultural workers, scholars and design students. FABRIC fosters new digital and cultural products co-created with refugee women. Clothing is an immediate, tactile, tangible and visual means of communication among Europeans and with the new citizens, and especially female clothing. It is a contested field. In FABRIC, we see clothing as an individual means of communicating our identity, our history and the future at which we aim. European and refugee women are invited to co-create and contribute to exhibitions, both digital, pop-up, and conventional shows, and use clothing to narrate their life stories: who taught me to knit, what my grandparents wore, who made my wedding gown, what is appropriate dress for me. Outputs include podcasts of these narratives, small films with subtitles in several languages, exhibited clothing and digital recreation of the wardrobes lost during conflict. The outcomes are strong means of dialogue and reflection while regaining the memory of lost histories, both within Europe and beyond.

FABRIC trains cultural workers to widen their scope, reach out to new audiences and speak directly to refugee/immigrant populations. Flight and immigration are age-old formative phenomena in Europe, and FABRIC links to other historical immigrant movements of the 20th century and their memories, as historical and oral narratives of female migrants both in vulnerable situations and as resources – as cultural interpreters, entrepreneurs, caretakers. Moreover, textile artists will work with refugee women as interns, and the co-creation and is accompanied by artist talks, interview with the interns, open virtual/digital workshops and pop-up exhibitions in Germany and Denmark.

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The Implementation Game 
Melanie Barwick (Faculty of Medicine ,School of Public Health University of Toronto)


Implementation is a complex process with many moving parts. SickKids Hospital in Toronto has developed a new educational and planning resource to support the implementation of evidence. The Implementation Game© (TIG) is a card game that simplifies the process into 5 main components to provide an implementation planning experience for an identified scenario or implementation endeavor. The Implementation Game is relevant to any discipline because the concepts are high level. There is no winner; the goal is either to learn, or to plan, or both. Playing TIG will help you grab that tiger by the tail and win at implementation.

Quick Facts:
 
• TIG is a learning and planning resource to support evidence-based implementation.
• TIG was developed by Dr. Melanie Barwick, an implementation scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children and Professor at the University of Toronto.
• TIG is informed by empirical evidence from the field of implementation science.
• TIG is ‘played’ with a group of people; ideally, the group who will be developing and managing an implementation plan or a group who are learning together.
• The TIG worksheet can also be printed out from our SickKids website www.sickkids.ca/Learning/AbouttheInstitute/Programs/Knowledge-Translation/Resources/Resources.html 

 
Event: Dissemination of Initial Study Findings
Rachel Persad (GuildHE & CREST Network)
 
Memory Tracks, a collaborative research project investigating the impact of music as a means to stimulate memory and promote independent living amongst those living with dementia, is holding an event at The Health Foundry in London on 22nd November to disseminate initial findings of the study. Register to attend: https://tuning-in-to-dementia.eventbrite.com/ 

Using a specially created app called Memory Tracks, the team engaged residents at a care home to link memorable music to daily tasks, such as eating or getting dressed. The impact of these songs was measured through observation. Early indications suggest that associating memorable songs to specific tasks can reduce the confusion and agitation commonly associated with dementia. This may have potential for the effective support and care of individuals with cognitive impairments.

The project team is led by Mark Brill, Senior Lecturer at the University for Creative Arts, with researchers at Wrexham Glyndwr University and Manchester Metropolitan University, Pendine Park Care Home, and tech start-up Memory Tracks.

The research is funded by the Consortium for Research Excellence, Support and Training (CREST), a sub-association of GuildHE, one of the two representative bodies for higher education in the UK. The project partners were brought together at a match event organised by CREST with the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, which sought to establish new projects that addressed grand challenges in society. The CREST initiative offers an alternative model for developing interdisciplinary collaborations between academia and society that span the UK and which generate research insights with impact for society. 
 
Press Release: "The future of higher education: quality assurance as a promoter of change. Global, European and Croatian perspective" 
 
Addressing the changes in the global environment, specifically the challenges through which the higher education institutions face and respond to them, was the goal of the Conference The future of higher education: quality assurance as a promoter of change. Global, European and Croatian perspectives. The conference was held on October 30, 2018 in Zagreb, organized by the Agency for Science and Higher Education.

Eminent global and European educational policy experts Dr. Francisco Marmolejo, global lead of tertiary education (the World Bank), Dr. Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for  Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) in the United States Dr. Karl Dittrich, president of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) and Ms. Tove Blytt Holmen, board member of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), presented new insights on the role and position of independent quality assurance agencies in higher education that, through external evaluation processes, support higher education institutions in their continuous transformation into innovative institutions that successfully deal with contemporary challenges. 
 
Social Impact: Identifying key elements for developing future social and technological policies.
University of Deusto, Bilbao
 
The Rector of the University of Deusto, together with representatives of the Basque Government and the European Commission opened the seminar “With the hand in dough: Paving the way to the social impact dimension of research”. 
The event had the objective of reflecting more deeply on how to solve the existing tensions between excellent science vs social impact recognition; disciplinary oriented research vs. interdisciplinary collaborative endeavours; overcoming traditional fixed rewarding and accreditation mechanisms mainly based on scientific indicators, among others.
The relevance of social impact was approached from different views and stakeholders (science policy players, university research managers, researchers, and social agents).
Participants and international experts from Japan, Belgium, The Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom and Finland analysed some of the current challenges such as the different meanings of social impact, its measurement and tools, the on-going debate on excellence and impact of research evaluation systems.
Conclusions include reflections on the difficulty of a linear attribution system for research results, their effects on social impact and the growing importance of deeply involving stakeholders in the research activity.
Event report: Communicating Science in a Complex World
Vetenskap & Allmänhet (VA), Sweden


Science is everywhere around us and therefore must be publicly discussed. This was the context for two events on collaboration and future strategies in science communication in Brussels on 17 October, organised by Wissenschaft im Dialog, the European Science Engagement Association, ALLEA – ALL European Academies and VA (Public & Science), supported by Bayer.
Social developments triggered by digitalisation, big data, artificial intelligence, curing diseases by modifying the genome of organisms and developing high-tech solutions to slow down climate change – these are just a few topics of enormous societal and political relevance with a direct connection to science and research. In our complex and constantly changing world science is everywhere and thus should be publicly debated.

Communication about science-related topics with the public is shaped by various stakeholders and their individual perspectives and concerns: Researchers promoting their projects and findings, institutional science communicators developing science education and engagement projects, science managers securing research funding, journalists reporting research outcomes, NGOs standing up for their values, industry communicating about their products and also politicians using scientific results for policy making – just to name a few. This diversity of stakeholders makes communicating about science complicated, but it gets even more complex when different regional, national and international frameworks as well as various personal or media-mediated contexts are taken into account.

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AESIS Course: 'Integrating societal impact in a research strategy' 

28 - 30 November 2018 in Leuven, Belgium

Still a few seats left!

Would you like to increase the societal impact in your research strategy? In all parts of the world, experts are working on improving the process of measuring and demonstrating the impact of science on society. In the past years, new methods have been developed to better justify and demonstrate the societal impact of scientific research by universities and research institutions. Increasingly, research councils do not just ask to promise impact of new research ideas, but also to plan activities to involve stakeholders and realise impact. Universities and universities of applied sciences develop impact strategies at regional and sectoral level.

During this interactive training course, experts from multiple countries, leading the innovation in research funding approaches, will discuss their experiences. They provide insights on how you can organise a research strategy in such a way that it strengthens societal impact. We are very pleased to announce that  Barend van der Meulen (Rathenau Institute) and Kathryn Graham (Alberta Innovatives) have confirmed to be the course's Programme Coordinators once more. Already confirmed keynote speakers at the course are Borbala Schenk (EARMA), David Budtz Pedersen (Humanomics Research Centre) and Mike Smith (Harper Keeley).

Information and Registration for the Course
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