Science Week 2024 Emphasises Regeneration and its Impact on Future Generations

Ask
Drury has supported Research Ireland in planning and delivering its flagship event – Science Week – since 2015. Science Week is Ireland’s largest annual public engagement initiative and a nationwide celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths. The key objective of the campaign is to target a broad audience, increasing participation and awareness with those who don’t engage with science every day.
The aim of Science Week 2024 was to encourage the target audience – specifically 18-35-year-olds, to explore the year’s theme ‘Regeneration’ – with the key message emphasising how the decisions we make today will greatly impact future generations.

Approach
Science Week 2024 included a range of activations and activities including in-person events, media partnerships and influencer content.
To support RI’s objectives, our campaign encouraged people to explore the theme of ‘Regeneration’ through engaging content, meaningful conversations, and event participation. The theme celebrated humanity’s ability to reinvent and renew — whether through protecting nature, advancing sustainable energy, embracing technology, or improving health.
Throughout the campaign, we planned and executed media partnerships with Mediahuis, The Irish Times, Greencastle, Goss.ie, Media Central and Irish Farmers Journal. Podcasts and partnerships with content creators were also key elements of the campaign.
Each partnership and aspect of the campaign was planned and designed with a specific audience group in mind. For example, our partnership with Greencastle included ‘vox pops’ published on social media to appeal to a younger demographic.
In keeping with the theme of Regeneration, Research Ireland collaborated with Macnas, who are renowned masters of visual storytelling help bring the Regeneration theme to life.
This collaboration involved the development of Alf the Newt. Inspired by current conversations around climate change and habitat loss, Alf is an interactive art installation, that explores biodiversity in a spectacular way.
In celebration of Alf the Newt arriving to Dublin, we held a stakeholder event in Dublin Castle to encourage people to come out and visit him, and to learn more about what he represents.
The overall objective of our media relations activity around the Newt was to ultimately encourage people to visit the Newt. This went hand in hand with our aim for Science Week overall, which was to encourage people to attend and engage with general Science Week events taking place around the country over the course of the week itself.
This was largely done through press releases which were issued to regional media, targeting specific events in those areas as well as pitching Research Ireland spokespeople for interview to local radio stations.

Outcome
Science Week 2024 was a huge success when analysed against key performance indicators. Attendance at events was an important objective set at the outset of planning.
The six podcast partnerships received over 1,044,708 listens, reaching audiences of varying interests and demographics. The combined influencer partnership resulted in social media views of 1,121,369 across 39 posts.
Additionally, we received media placements in Irish and international news outlets including Sky News, The Sunday Times, Nuacht, News2Day, and RTE.
As well as this, we achieved over 25 regional media placements, highlighting the network and reach of Science Week’s regional festivals and events that were happening nationwide, and in turn driving attendance at local Science Week celebrations across the country.