Outreach

We highly value public outreach and are grateful to tailor a part-time position in CONFECT specifically to this end. We believe that due to COVID-19 there is a very strong interest in the public to learn about basic viral ecology and evolution. CONFECT is an ideal conduit to promote understanding of how tiny viruses influence the evolution of all organisms on the planet, both in beneficial and detrimental ways. Thus, all our PhD’s and post-docs will be asked to create a popular science letter or multi-media show on their research that we aim to publish in the national media (TV, radio, newspapers or popular science papers like forskning.no). To ensure continuity of outreach, we will also provide our project data to the “Ekte data-platform” (https://ektedata.uib.no/), which is a space for education and outreach activities that has previously been utilised by NORCE and UiB using data generated from the EU funded AQUACOSM-plus as a test case.

Finally, for targeting very young members of our community, interactive games will be developed to allow participants to playfully learn about infection dynamics. These games will be part of a science stand at Bergen forsknigsdagene (https://www.forskningsdagenebergen.com/). Resources made available for dissemination through CONFECT will also be used to intensify collaboration with Skolelaboratoriet at UiB to educate Videregående skole (“High school”) teachers, as well as VilVite – Bergen Science Center (https://www.vilvite.no/). In these activities, our main mission is to present complicated science in an understandable way to childr

Scientific dissemination of our research activities will take place through publications in high-impact open access peer-reviewed journals and international conferences as well as our CONFECT symposium. We also seek to develop reports from our summer schools into peer-reviewed publications, involving early career researchers in the multi step process from data acquisition to analysis and publication. Project partners furthermore include findings from our research into their coursework for Bachelor and Masters students. Where possible, course material remains online for continued education after the project.

Symposium 2023:

CONFECT will arrange a symposium (lead by UiB) where all partners in the project will present recent research within our topic “Virus ecology and evolution”. As we cover a spectrum of virus types, hosts and state-of-the-art methodology, we can present a holistic view on this topic. The symposium will be open for ca.50 participants including researchers in the forefront of the field and PhDs and postdocs. The size of the symposium will ensure a friendly environment for young people to present and discuss their research with experts in the field.