Erasmus University Medical Center

This year, in the context of brain awareness week, “2019: A Brain Odyssey” was organized in collaboration with the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam. It was a two day event, on Saturday and Sunday, 16th and 17 of March. The event included workshops in the museum, lectures/discussion pannels, an exhibition of microscopy pictures related to the research of the department of Neuroscience of Erasmus Medical Center adn also the guest had the opportunity to participate in organized lab tours, that took them through some of the most developed set-ups that are used in the department. The subject of the workshops were ranging, from demontstration of the anatomy of the human brain, or the path of the auditory system, or more interactive where guest could test the effect of vestuibular stimulation on their balance, see their carotide artery with ultrasound and record their own spikes of neuronal activity. The lectures were about basic neuroscience, or more “hot” topics as the use of iPSCs in neuroscience or a discussion about animal testing and research ethics. The lab tours would take the guest through optogenetics setup, a mice behavioral setup and an electrophysiological setup. The event was wildly succesful, for the promoting or the financing that it received (the funding was unfortunately limited as we also did not qualify for the DANA foundation BAW grant). Together with the visitors of the museum in this weekend, we reache more than 400 people, of all ages and educational background. We received extremely positive comments, from guests as well as from collaborators, so all together this setup turned out to be a great success that we will try to follow next years!

I believe that with “2019:A Brain Odyssey” the main goal was achieved. A significant number of people from the general public was reached, creating a bridge between research and the public. Collaborating with a city museum put Brain Awareness Week on the map as an annual event and established a collaboration that will prove useful, to take Brain Awareness Week in Rotterdam one step further next year.

I believe the biggest lessons learnt for us, being nothing close to professional event planners, was the need to carefully plan the promotion of your event and take enough time to reach all the necessary promoting partners.