Beautiful Science is a British Council initiative – linking science, education and the arts – which ultimately seeks to inspire young people to consider a career in science and encourage young scientists to communicate with the wider public, in an open, comprehensive, inspired and interactive way.

The Beautiful Science Regional Project will be implemented in 9 countries in South East Europe region: Austria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Israel, Romania, Serbia and Turkey and the UK.

It involves a programme of activities designed to develop partnerships between UK and regional science communicators to share best practice and encourage professional development by engaging UK creativity.

Beautiful Science started on 13 November in Cheltenham UK with a workshop for the 9 South-East European countries representatives and UK partners for preparing the first events under the national FameLab competition.

In Serbia the British Council is working on this project in partnership with the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.

For further information on Beautiful Science project, please contact Sanja Eric, Projects Assistant in our Belgrade office at the following e-mail sanja.eric@britishcouncil.org.yu

The project has three components:

FAMELAB COMPETITION
Do you want to become the new face of science in your country? Do you want to be part of a regional network of science communicators? Do you want to develop your skills as communicators? Come to FameLab, the national competition for people working in science running in nine South-East European countries and in the UK. Find out more.

'VISUALISE' SCIENCE
Innovative use of arts to bring science closer to young people through a theatre show by the UK company Science Made Simple. Find out more.

A series of public debates
Conversations on science and social/citizenship issues taking place in participating countries. Find out more.

What people are saying about Beautiful Science
The first cycle of events included an extremely successful series of Famelab competitions in all nine countries, with over 350 participants and 90 young communicators trained in the master classes. The winners from each country went to Cheltenham where they met the UK finalists and performed, much to the admiration of the UK audience. Here are some of the reactions:

• This event has changed my life! (Bulgaria)
• You made me a real media star! (Serbia)
• There should be more similar events! (Croatia)
• I can only recommend FameLab to anyone else. Go for it! (Austria)
• FameLab was for me an exit from the daily routine as everyday I go in the classroom, I get a message to my students. (Romania)
• You know, I didn’t expect it to be so interesting, I expected it to be too serious, or even boring, as all scientific competitions are- I am certainly going to take part next year. (Azerbaijan)
• We would like to thank you. We hope this becomes an institution by the Greek Ministry of Education. (Greece)
• Famelab was a wonderful experience, seeing how people are amazed by science is very fulfilling. (Israel)
• I am a Turk living in the Netherlands. I am very happy to watch such a programme at this time of the night. You are doing great. I really want to congratulate you. I hope it will continue and we learn new things.
• “They made me trust them and that is one of the most important things in science communication.” Lord Robert Winston said after the show in Cheltenham