Researchers go back to school to present their job: the FNR organised the 7th edition of the campaign ‘Chercheurs à l’école’ from 27 to 31 March 2017. A record-breaking 111 researchers took part in the 2017 edition – almost double the number that took part in 2016.
One of the main goals of the ‘Chercheurs à l’école’ campaign is to present and promote the profession of researcher, still relatively unknown to the general public. Scientists of all scientific disciplines from public institutions and the private sector go back to school to meet school pupils to speak to them about their life as a researcher: the life as a student, their motivation for one or the other scientific discipline, first steps in their professional lives, career challenges and opportunities.
Pupils are given the opportunity to meet researchers “in flesh and bone” and to receive information on the advantages and also the possible disadvantages of being a scientist.
For the seventh time, the initiative was a great success, with 111 researchers delivering a total of 68 sessions to 66 classes spread over 26 schools. The campaign has grown exponentially since 2016, where 63 researchers, 47 classes and 21 schools took part.
The FNR would like to thank all the participants who contributed to the success of Chercheurs à l’école 2017, especially for their time, effort and support.
Researchers who participated in our 2017 edition:
“I feel that Chercheurs à l’école shows the students that there are endless opportunities in Luxembourg and abroad”
Kacy Greenhalgh, 3rd year PhD student in the Eco-Systems Biology group at the LCSB at the University of Luxembourg, who took part in Chercheurs à l’école, said:
”Chercheurs à l’école has given me as a researcher the opportunity to share my research topic and my passion in nutrition with high school students. More importantly it also has allowed me to tell them that I did not know this at their age! In fact, I was clueless and had no idea where and what to study. This is normal and part of growing up.
“As a high school student ‘doing a phD’ seems so far away but I feel that Chercheurs à l’école shows the students that there are endless opportunities in Luxembourg and abroad and that the they should not be scared off by not knowing what to do, but instead do exactly the opposite and put themselves out there, apply for summer internships and eventually they too, will find out who they are, and what they enjoy doing.’’
Alex Gansen, AFR PhD in computational electromagnetics at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) who also took part in Chercheurs à l’école, said:
“All the attendants were polite, motivated and followed the different presentations carefully. It was for me a pleasure to present my work to them and talk about the everyday life of a researcher from my point of view. I hope I could answer all their questions to their satisfaction and motivate some students to start a career as researcher, maybe even in the field of computational engineering. If I get the opportunity, I will definitely participate again and I can only encourage more researchers to do so to motivate as many students as possible.”
More information
2017 Press Release: Communiqué de presse (FR) / Pressemitteilung (DE)
In the press
- L’Essentiel: FR / DE
- Radio 100,7