The EC financed project “ESCITY-Europe Science and the City: Promoting Science Culture at Local Level”, was presented in the Catalonia Regional Office on the 6th of February. The event was organized by the Barcelona Provincial Council. Programme of the meeting

The public session of ESCITY was chaired by Mr Jean Michel Baer, responsible for the Directorate for Science, Economy and Society and Stephen Parker, Head of Education and Science within the same Directorate. The event was attended by the ESCITY partners, and more than 50 representatives of the regional offices based in Brussels. It also had the participation of the ESCITY associated members: Agora Scienza. Università degli Studi di Torino (Italy), Evora, Guimarães and Estremoz municipalities (Portugal), San Sebastian Strategic Plan (Spain), Nottingham City Council (UK), the city of Munich and the University of Lüneburg (Germany).

Vladimir de Semir, Scientific Director of ESCITY made a presentation on science culture as the driving force of the city development in the transition to a knowledge society. As De Semir stated, “knowledge resources must be considered in regional terms, cities must give support to business based on dense knowledge and they must also stimulate research and creative centres, knowledge has to be perceived by citizens as a source of wealth, and the public must understand and assimilate the nature of the changes that are going on in the knowledge society.” The final message of his speech was that scientific culture must be introduced in local cultural policies. [Download presentation]

Johanna Cáceres, Director of ESCITY, gave an overview of the project and approached the future of ESCITY, which aims at creating the ESCITY network of cities promoting science at local level. [Download presentation]