START Festival: Impact assessment

Trinity College Dublin has coordinated European Researchers’ Nights in Ireland every year since 2013. Building on this rich experience of public engagement and researcher development, the Start Talking About Research Today (START) team will again coordinate events across multiple partners and locations in 2024 and 2025. Through a combination of in-person and virtual activities, demonstrations, tours, and talks, START will promote the idea that research is a living, fundamental part of our society that impacts and involves everyone.

START aims to spark deeper, more impactful engagement with the public and bring researchers and citizens together in dialogue about the role research and research careers play in our everyday lives.

START provides an opportunity for the general public and researchers to engage with each other in new ways.

START works to achieve several specific goals:

Create new dialogues between researchers and the general public that will lead to a deeper, more profound and sustained engagement with each other;

Raise awareness of research and research careers as positive forces in our society;

Highlight the role of the European Union in supporting research and discovery.

IMI is leading on impact assessment for the START 2024/2025 project.