Each year to round off the opening ceremony of the Ecsite Conference, the winners of the Mariano Gago Ecsite Awards are announced. This year at experimenta in Heilbronn, Germany, was no different. Today, the Beacon of the Year and the Responsible and Responsive Awards were presented

The Mariano Gago Ecsite Awards encourage creative and impactful initiatives in science engagement and science communication in the informal science education sector.

The 2022 Beacon of the Year Award was presented to Anna Omedes, former Director of the Museum of Natural Science in Barcelona, Spain for her personal embodiment of the network’s values. The award celebrates inspirational individuals who have made a significant contribution to both the field and to the Ecsite network, recognising innovative visionaries who are empowering and motivating their peers to reach the common goal of emboldening citizens to engage with science.

The Responsible and Responsive Award was specifically created to acknowledge the outstanding work of Ecsite member organisations during the Covid-19 pandemic aims to recognise institutions for their resilience, and for their original, creative ideas that have had positive impact for communities at a time of crisis.

The winner of this award in 2022 is The International Centre for Life in Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom for their project E=MC2 online. This was a virtual project that, with help from local families, engaged with 13,000 autistic people with science demonstrations and live chats during the UK pandemic lockdowns.

‘‘We would like to congratulate the winners and all of the nominees for this year’s awards’’ said Bruno Maquart, President of Ecsite ‘‘we have always been a supportive and innovative community, but the pandemic has pushed us further and it’s great to see what has been achieved in difficult circumstances.’’

The Mariano Gago Ecsite awards are named after José Mariano Gago (1948 - 2015), a key figure in European science engagement. He held significant roles in many European level organisations and drove the development of European policies for science, technology and innovation as well as being an active contributor to Ecsite’s activities over many years. “In a few decades Mariano Gago was able to build a modern scientific community deeply rooted in Portuguese society, implementing his vision that science is source of both technical and human progress’’ Mário Pimenta President of the LIP laboratory, sponsor of the Mariano Gago Ecsite Awards 2022.

Ecsite is delighted to be able to highlight and reward outstanding achievements in the field of science engagement and science communication in Mariano Gago’s name. The 2022 Ecsite Conference takes place in Heilbronn until Saturday 4th June with more than 900 science communicators.