ENZo Lecture „special“: About research, action and having fun

Firstly, there is the board game WattsNext: the creators set out to explain technical issues ranging from the climate crisis to energy-saving measures in a playful way. They spent months fine-tuning the details of the game idea. They first presented the prototype to scientists for a fact check, then to children and adults to play and have fun, always with success. Another project extracts carbon dioxide from the ambient air using Mini Direct Air Capture (DAC) so that in future it might be used to operate a home water bubbler, for example - a real gadget for reducing CO₂. But not every Real World Project takes off straight away. The next team on stage reports on dissatisfied test subjects and scuttled ideas. Lessons learned and moving on is the message of the project team, coupled with a lot of humor.

The evening continues with an entertaining gallery walk followed by a fishbowl debate. It becomes increasingly clear what drives the ENZo participants above all else: Combining science with reality, more exchange and communication, the appeal of interdisciplinary projects, making their own skills and qualifications available to everyone. It is clear to everyone that not every Real World project immediately results in a business case. It is much more important to simply get started and learn a lot of things along the way that tend to fall by the wayside in day-to-day scientific work. To this end, the ENZo graduate school has recently started working with the Helmholtz Transfer Academy HAFIS.