Science Valais
Creating a community to promote professional scientific activities
Project: Science Valais
Location: Sion, Switzerland
Industries: Science, Research, Higher Education
Date: Since 2017
Link: sciencevalais.ch
The Challenge
It is truly fascinating to observe the scientific discoveries that come about from years of extensive research. However, complex research results are not always the most accessible to the general public; the language and level of technicality presented in the findings can deter audiences. Educational institutions, universities, associations, and researchers in the canton of Valais in Switzerland felt as though they lacked the opportunity to present their research results, let alone in different languages or through online platforms.
The Solution
As a result of this project, we helped create an innovation ecosystem around scientific activities and worked to link science with the economy. In addition, we have attracted many innovators and entrepreneurs to transform and implement their scientific research into businesses, products, or services.
Press
Le monde ne s'est jamais aussi bien porté. La chronique d'Alexandre Luyet, Le Nouvelliste
«Science Valais», une plateforme pour soutenir les acteurs scientifiques du canton, Canal 9
La matière grise du canton, Le Nouvelliste
The mission of Science Valais is to defend and promote professional, scientific activities both inside and outside the canton. We wanted to provide networking opportunities to key scientific actors and allow their work to gain greater visibility to the general public, whether that be training, research, development, or disseminating knowledge. The promotion activities aimed to encourage the next generation of scientists to develop further their interests and understanding of science among the general public. We also wanted to position Valais as an ecosystem favorable to research.
The Science Valais team organizes its activities around three axes: Science promotion and visibility, networking, and shared tools. In terms of the communication strategy, we worked diligently to bring together individuals with marketing, scientific communication skills, and academic expertise to make the network available in Valais, Switzerland, and abroad. We ensured that we made the platform multilingual to communicate in French, German, and English. We started by creating a platform that also doubled as a communication agency for scientific institutions. By providing different actors with practical and efficient support for disseminating scientific knowledge, we helped them disperse their scientific research and discoveries, event design, and implementation while working with a centralized plan to promote local scientific events like science cafes.
A video portrait of a scientist created by Science Valais
We worked virtually to promote scientific news, federate offers of training courses, conferences, and moderated the platform through the entire process; we also created our events to increase visibility to existing circumstances. We worked to create a community of returning users by including portraits of the institutions, highlights of the month’s institutions, general news and job offers in our newsletters, a platform for sharing infrastructures, and resources for research funding. The Science Valais community has been growing steadily since the launch. We are presently creating content on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. We have created a city with over 2000 subscribers on each account, which opens up the ability to promote events, science-related news in Valais and expand the network that we already have.
“Thanks to Science Valais, the entire ecosystem around research and development in Valais is gaining greater visibility. This platform represents an essential economic added value for Valais.”
Other activities
Science Valais was also involved in the following activities:
Organization of the exhibition of the winners of the SNSF scientific photo competition (Foire du Valais, HES-SO Valais)
Partner of the Culture Days with Culture Valais
Partner of the first Digital Day in Valais
Partner of the scientastic festival of the EPFL in Sion
We got involved with these organizations to support Valais’ scientific ecosystem, build and strengthen the ways to show science to the public. To do this, we have partnered with other key institutions such as SNSF, HES-SO, Culture Valais, Digital Switzerland, and EPFL to create specific science dissemination and communication events.
The platform successfully highlighted the canton’s diversity and scientific richness, which added economic value to the Valais. Through the transmission of scientific discoveries and knowledge, Science Valais promoted links between institutes and schools, researchers, and professors and enabled them to do scientific exchanges. With this ecosystem, the research and development in tertiary education in the Valais became more accessible to the general public because they were popularized and adapted to different audiences.