NAE Brings the Science Backstage to the European Researchers' Night 2025
The Strategic Areas Unit (NAE), of the Research Management Service (SPGI) of the University of Coimbra, in collaboration with the RM Framework: Creating a European Framework for Research Management Training and Networking project, will be present in the European Researchers’ Night 2025 (NEI), which will take place on 26 September, between 5 p.m. to midnight, in downtown Coimbra.
The team will be located at Point 89, in front of Casa Aninhas, where it will present the activity “A Dive into the Science backstage – Research Support and Management”.
The initiative aims to raise awareness of the less visible, yet essential, role of research management professionals, who ensure that each research project runs successfully.
Because the path of science begins long before the first experiment, NAE invites the public to discover how science is built behind the scenes, making knowledge progress possible.
A Dive into the Science backstage – Research Support and Management
Every day, science is called upon to respond to the major challenges of our world—from climate change to global health, from inclusive education to building fairer institutions. Behind every project, there are choices and collaborations that rarely make the headlines but are essential for science to move forward. The success of a scientific project begins long before the first experiment.
This activity invites the public to explore, in a playful and interactive way, the less visible side of research: Where does science funding come from? How is a research proposal prepared? How is a team built? How is a lab set up? What does it mean to manage a complex project? And how do we build science that is open, responsible and collaborative?
With games and missions for all ages - and plenty of conversation - we will open the doors to the backstage of science and ask: what does it mean to work in science “without being a scientist”?
Framed within the European project RM Framework: Creating a European Framework for Research Management Training and Networking (2025–2027), the activity highlights the profession—or rather, the professions - of research management, which help make science’s collective response to today’s challenges possible.