Paper short abstract:

How can science museums launch effective processes of public engagement in the light of RRI? We report the concept of an interactive workshop on socio-scientific issues related to Synthetic Biology applications.

Paper long abstract:

In its mission of science museum of modern conception, challenge of MUSE (Trento, Italy) is to act as modern agora where the various actors of science innovations are stimulated to come together to build up scientific knowledge. As part of the 7th FP UE project SYNENERGENE (http://www.synenergene.eu/), aimed at developing RRI practices in synthetic biology (synbio), we experimented a new public engagement activity to demonstrate how vanillin, a commonly used flavor, is industrially produced with this technology. Our format is a workshop where participants may practically learn how vanillin is produced with both 'natural' and synthetic biology strategies. The final goal is to let MUSE's visitors experiment different visions of the various actors involved in a controversial technology. To do this, three videos are presented, respectively showing the perspectives of the industry producing synbio vanillin, of an academic scientist developing synbio research, and of NGOs opposing synbio vanillin. Participants are encouraged to express their willingness to invest public support in synthetic biology research and eventually to choose the field among health, agriculture and environment. Crucial phase is participants' evaluation of the activity and their understanding of the key messages delivered with the workshop, by means of an ad hoc questionnaire. Answers are compared with the results of questionnaires delivered to control MUSE's visitors, not taking part to the workshop, which gave interesting information about knowledge and opinions on synthetic biology in lay-citizens.