One of the key impact priorities of the SENSE. project is to promote a science-literate society and raising interest in STEAM across all age groups. Our findings show that SENSE. appeals to participants of all ages and reduced gender stereotypes.
The importance of european policy areas
A key part of the SENSE project is to encourage progress on important European policies. These include policies on work readiness, the Green Deal, digitisation and health. These policies offer opportunities to think again about the work and mission of educational systems in Europe. The portraits of the SENSE. living labs show how people were changing over time.
In particular, SENSE. has excelled in aligning with the values of the Green Deal, raising awareness of sustainability issues and empowering participants to tackle environmental issues with confidence. In the area of health and well-being, the project’s emphasis on sensory engagement has contributed to a deeper understanding and appreciation of these issues. By focusing on employability, SENSE. has successfully integrated industry needs into education, developing students’ employability skills and supporting their future career paths.
Green deal, work readiness, health and digitisation
By working across policy priorities the project has also addressed digitisation by equipping participants with essential digital skills, preparing them for an increasingly digital world.
Across four policy areas, work-readiness was addressed by all Labs with 100% impact, as the methodology was designed at the outset to move out of teaching of abstract models and to develop dimensions of learning which are more closely aligned with the vocational priorities of the world of work. For example, confidence, creativity, positive outlook and meaningful connections to other people and place were clearly evidenced and corroborated by the questionnaire results, and these correspond to the transversal skills endorsed by the ECSO classification (i.e. maintaining a positive attitude; willingness to learn; thinking creatively and innovatively). SENSE. Activities targeted half of the total population (total of 4310 stakeholders) through digitisation which ranged from collecting and analysing data but also adopting arts-based methods for visualisation and making sense of data distribution, often also using digital tools. Considering that the digital divide across Europe, this result shows the applicability of SENSE. as a first step for awareness and advocacy in relation to Digitisation. SENSE. activities explicitly targeted Green Deal (27%) and this corresponded to 40% of total participants with similar results also for Health which counts as 27% for all activities and 18% of the total stakeholders.
SENSE impact for your organisation
Do you want your organisation to benefit from the SENSE approach? Make use of our trusted strategy tools in this section, or try our STEAM activities and toolkits in the ‘Engage’ section. We have selected a variety of activities for you that cover a range of topics and objectives, and our evaluation toolkit provides guidance on how to incorporate these activities into a feedback or evaluation framework.
Impact evaluation report
Read our full report on the impact of the SENSE. STEAM Living labs here: