The long-term, ongoing activities of the Centre of Administration and Operations (CAO) of the Czech Academy of Sciences involve organising educational events and events that popularise science aimed at the general public – lectures, workshops, festivals, exhibitions, etc. In the highly “competitive environment” of an almost infinite number of events offered by the commercial sphere, mass media, and social media, and with the ever-accelerating pace of life, each popularisation event must be prepared to the maximum extent possible according to the needs of the particular target audience, whether it be the general public as in the case of the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences, or a small group of experts or university students with a given field of study.

In practice, the needs of the target audience can be revealed in practically only one possible objective way, i.e., by measuring these attitudes and needs by means of standardised sociological research methods or market (and consumer behaviour) research methods.

Therefore, as part of a long-term plan to monitor the real impact of our popularisation activities, the first phase of the plan was launched at the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences 2022 in an attempt to gain an understanding of the motivation of visitors and their attitudes towards science, and more specifically towards Czech science and the CAS.

The aim of the survey was not only to monitor the behaviour of visitors at the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences and to evaluate their assessment of the event in 2022, for instance, in terms of preferences for certain activities, scientific disciplines, communication channels, but also to be able to use proven tools of support and promotion of individual activities in the future in order to positively influence the attitudes of visitors towards our popularisation activities.

In 2022, the first of a series of questionnaire (sociological) surveys was carried out to evaluate selected aspects of a particular popularisation activity of the CAS – the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences 2022 – from the perspective of the festival goers. From the get-go, the research was conceived as a non-representative study (in terms of the general population or visitor profile), specific, especially with regard to a narrowly defined target group, and a rather arbitrary sampling method.

Final report from the quantitative survey (of visitors) re the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences 2022 [Czech only]

Final report from the quantitative survey - Science Fair 2023 [Czech only]