ACCENT · Action on Climate Change through Engagement, Networks and Tools

Fifteen relevant organisations among science centres, science museums and aquariums will be engaged by this proposal ACCENT in a coordination action aimed at rationalising their two-way communication practices and at strengthening their collaborations with the scientific community on climate change issues. Climate change issues are clearly a growing concern for the public today. In recent years, people have received a great deal of information from media on the causes and consequences of climate changes, but – depending on countries and regions – the understanding of citizens and their engagement in these topics is still varied. ACCENT proposes to contribute to a global effort to move the campaign on climate change from “informative” to the “active” phase, through the exchange and dissemination of practices, with specific actions that encourage the involvement of citizens in actions and dialogue. The rising demand for public participation is evident when addressing global challenges; in this sense, involvement of the public would be central to the ACCENT strategy to improve the capacity of European democracies to represent and include citizens' perspectives. Through ACCENT, the science centre community is committing itself to strengthening the efforts its institutions made at the local level in a one year European Communication Action on Climate change issues for the dissemination of European research results, and to establishing the dialogue among scientists, stakeholders and the public through participative practices. They will capitalise on their competences in a European sustainable Web platform that will act as “collector” as well as “disseminator” for any organisations dealing with public engagement in science. ACCENT will assess the outcomes from the engagement and participation of the public in order to deliver reliable data on the opinion and perception of European citizens about climate change issues.