New Science Shop launched in Grenoble, France

With the start of the new academic year 2011, ADReCA (Association pour le Developpement d’une Recherche Citoyenne et Active ) has officially launched its science shop, called ‘L’Echop’ à Sciences’. A new website online , which will allow NGOs, scientists and students to interact. During the past five years the support of Living Knowledge and PERARES has been essential to enable this project to be realized.
The French partners are the Fondation Science Citoyenne (FSC) and there is a similar project in Lyon. In parallel the ADReCA successfully bided for funding to support research projects, via the Rhone-Alpes regional authority’s “Université Citoyenne et Solidaire” program.
Since March 2010 the ADReCA employs 2 staff, who are building a network of contacts with NGOs and scientists. In June the ADReCA, with the FSC, ran a successful two-day Permanent Dialogue workshop with 30 members of the NGO and scientific community. The conclusions were clear. NGO’s need scientific expertise and the scientific community is willing to work with NGOs but is limited in terms of time and resources for such projects. Information: www.echopa-sciences.org/