Nouveaux Commanditaires Sciences
Generate a research question by sharing curiosity between citizens and researchers
The objective of the program Nouveaux Commanditaires - Sciences, with the support of the Fondation de France, is to guide and stimulate communities of non-scientists to engage in dialogue with researchers, and to co-create open questions. These questions, issued from creative meetings, will therefore be originally conceived both by researchers and citizens.
This approach is inspired from the program Nouveaux Commanditaires - Art (New Patrons), which has been used in arts since 1991 and has allowed for more than 450 art pieces in 8 European countries to be conceived based upon a dialogue between artists and citizens. Since 2013, the Atelier des Jours à Venir experiments this approach in the field of sciences.
This very experimental approach is not a unilateral demand from citizens to scientists to answer their question, neither a dialogue about an already existing research or knowledge : it is a collaboration to create a shared question, to share curiosity and explore together the unknown. Asking open questions shall not be the privilege of scientists. Moreover, sharing curiosity and co-creating questions strengthens the relevance of science for society and allows to reach a higher degree of creativity.
Committing on a process lasting for several years, both communities then co-design the research methodologies required to answer the question that has been selected. In some cases, they can further collaborate, with non-scientists taking part in producing and analyzing data.
Furthermore, we pay attention to include curious citizens from youth, people from underprivileged backgrounds, as well as women and young researchers.
Read the Nouveaux Commanditaires - Sciences protocol (in French).
