SHARPER brings together young generations, citizens, and researchers to develop roadmaps to a better and desirable future. Researchers are passionate about future, and they constantly design, adapt and implement roadmaps to contribute to build it. This process increasingly involves young generations and citizens at large and make researchers and citizens “travel mates”. Curiosity driven choices and social needs together mould researchers’ agendas and generate roadmaps that need to be constantly enhanced to effectively tackle new challenges. Researchers are increasingly at the heart of this process and the acronym SHARPER – SHAring Researchers’ Passion for Enhanced Roadmaps describes their attitude to constantly evolve action plans to be key players within the society. SHARPER 2022 and 2023 will let citizens and researchers share this endeavour through engaging activities focused on the 5 missions of the Horizon Europe work programme. SHARPER involves 14 cities in 8 regions across Italy: Ancona, Camerino, Cagliari, Catania, Genoa, Macerata, L'Aquila, Nuoro, Palermo, Pavia, Perugia, Sassari, Terni and Trieste through a diverse network of 9 consortium partners including Universities, Research Institutions, Museums, Social Enterprises and more than 200 stakeholders from the civil society, the cultural creative world, industry, research and education. A special collaboration is developed with the Education National System through association of teachers and regional educational offices. The project will consolidate and innovate the experience developed over the last 9 years triggering researchers’ and citizens’ engagement across Italy. SHARPER has a solid European dimension through a collaboration with 7 ERNs in 7 countries to develop creative online contents and formats, common strategies on impact assessment and researchers’ trainings. SHARPER also collaborates with other Nights in Italy to share ideas, communication and awareness actions.

SHARPER means SHAring Researchers’ passion for Education and Rights and it is the European Researchers’ Night and the Researchers at Schools program in 15 cities of 9 regions in Italy in 2024 and 2025. A diverse set of public engagement actions created by a community of more than 300 stakeholders from all over Italy: researchers from universities, communicators, teachers and students, entrepreneurs, and cultural bodies. This increasing network works together as one to build a better, desirable, and peaceful future based on shared knowledge generated jointly by researchers and citizens. The core philosophy of Sharper is inclusion and accessibility to reliable information, quality education for all. The cities involved: Ancona, Bari, Cagliari, Camerino, Catania, Genova, L’Aquila, Nuoro, Palermo, Pavia, Perugia, Sassari, Urbino, Terni and Trieste and their territories are transformed into accessible labs where everyone, side by side with researchers, can explore complex issues summarized by the five Mission areas of the Horizon Europe program. A multi-actor and multidisciplinary approach are the key used by communicator and researchers to engage citizens of all ages, both: those who are interested into these topics and want to know more about the role of researchers in building the future, or those who are skeptical and rarely or never get involved in cultural initiatives about research. Students, teachers and the school community that also includes families are a central actor of Sharper that engage them in a rich and wide set of activities organized locally, nationally and internationally all year round. From open and accessible labs to workshops and games, from talks to performances that involve students in their schools or online to meet young researchers from all over the world and discover how wide is the researchers’ job in terms of topics interests and skills that young generation can practice becoming responsible citizens.

Researchers are social game changer with the ability to promptly react to crisis and with the passion for preventing and harnessing new ones by addressing global goals with citizens. The pandemic enhanced one of the researchers’ main quality: their responsiveness to new challenges. It also stressed the need to be responsive actively engaging citizens and communities to obtain socially effective results through collective actions. SHARPER means: SHAring Researchers’ Passion for Engaging Responsiveness and it is the European Researchers’ Night that aims at making these researchers’ qualities visible, valuable and engaging for everybody, involving all citizens in experiencing the researchers’ commitment for a sustainable and desirable future. With a shared cultural experience based on the combination of innovative online, onsite and blended formats, SHARPER will let citizens and researchers be part of the same endeavour. It will focus on topics related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) interpreted from the prospective of the European strategy towards 2050. SHARPER involves 16 cities in 10 regions: Ancona, Camerino, Cagliari, Catania, Genoa, Macerata, L'Aquila, Nuoro, Palermo, Pavia, Perugia, Sassari, Terni, Torino, Trento, Trieste through a diverse network of 11 consortium partners including Universities, Research Institutions, Museums and Social Enterprises, and over 167 stakeholders from the civil society, the cultural creative world, industry, research and education. It will consolidate and innovate the experience developed over the last 8 years triggering researchers’ and citizens engagement across Italy. SHARPER has a solid European dimension through a collaboration with 11 ERNs in 9 countries to develop: creative online contents and formats, common strategies on impact assessment, researchers’ trainings and a mobility scheme for young researchers. SHARPER also collaborates with other Nights in Italy to share ideas and communication and awareness actions.