Invitation to apply for Outreach Projects
Deadline: Outreach project proposal can be submitted anytime, but evaluations and assessments will be done by IAGA once a year in early June
In general, one project per year will be selected for funding. Please read the following information and guidelines for preparing your proposal.
Budget Provisions: Maximum of 5000 Euro for projects lasting up to 2 years.
Why Outreach?
The Earth’s magnetic field is essential for life as it is a primary protector of the planet from hazards from outer space. Study of the different aspects of this field provides knowledge, which allows us understand how this natural system works, will lead to improvements in navigation and help to protect our communication systems and electric grid from space weather. It will also lead to the understanding of the origin of this field and its evolution over time.
Outreach is the activity of providing information or services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. Sharing and communicating your research or profession with a wider non-specialist audience leads to improvement of general awareness, promotion of opportunities of engagement and bring about scientific attitudes towards our natural environment.
Conducting science outreach activities is also a great way to gain a deeper understanding of research by experts and their applications. In the efforts to explain an aspect of science or technology to a third-grader or lay public, the levels of understanding of the project team are greatly enhanced. Further, it provides opportunity for them to build on skills like leadership, problem solving, decision making, communication, adaptability and self-confidence.
Different Outreach Strategies
The aims and objectives of the outreach proposals may vary, based on
- Goals and expected outcomes
- Strategies which will be used to achieve those outcomes and
- Monitoring and evaluation of the real vs desired outcomes
What would be the age groups and education backgrounds of the outreach targets?
- School student outreach? Post graduate outreach?
- Community/stakeholder outreach?
- Complementary community and groups outreach?
The purposes and expectations may range as:
- One time Information dissemination for awareness for knowledge gain and appreciation
- Regular knowledge transfer for attracting new talent to the scientific pool
- Crowd sourcing of data contributions to make science better
Structure and Scope of proposals for Outreach Projects
Project proposals should contain the following information:
- Motivation
- Detailed description of the proposed activity (eg. a series of lessons, videos, and webinars designed for middle and high school students, undergraduate students and the general public) as well as of the target audience (Have a clear idea of who you’re targeting; Plan the channels you’ll use; Refine and test your messaging; Track your results and continually optimize your process)
- Duration of the project
- Composition and affiliations of the project team
- Deliverables and evaluation parameters
- Requested budget with justification and including information on other sources of support if applicable
Selection criteria
The IAGA Executive Committee will select proposals to be funded according to the following main criteria:
- Relevance of the project to IAGA scientific topics
- Expected impact range of project and its results (e.g., education activities should also yield material that can be used more widely in the future, such as recordings, a collection of education material etc.)
- Feasibility / risks
Conditions
- In the various published outcomes of the project: IAGA has to be mentioned as sponsor, IAGA logo included in any visual support and IAGA ROR explicitly indicated in any digital item’s metadata (https://ror.org/013ym9476)
- Output(s) should be publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) and a digital original copy transmitted or made available to the IAGA secretary
- A brief report about the project and its outcomes has to be sent to the IAGA secretary general no later than 1 month after the end of the project. The report will be published in the IAGA Newsletter and a photo/picture from the project or its results is appreciated.
- A brief report on how the funding was used has to be sent to the IAGA secretary general and the treasurer no later than 1 month after the end of the project.
