ETABLISSEMENT PUBLIC DU PALAIS DE LA DECOUVERTE ET DE LA CITE DES SCIENCES ET DE L'INDUSTRIE

Their core work

This is the public institution operating two of France's most visited science museums — the Palais de la Découverte and the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris — together attracting millions of visitors annually. Their core work is translating scientific knowledge into accessible public experiences through permanent and temporary exhibitions, hands-on experiments, and science education programs for schools and the general public. In H2020, they contributed as an outreach and dissemination partner in science education projects, applying their expertise in informal learning environments, STEAM pedagogy, and large-scale science communication to pan-European initiatives. Their institutional value in research consortia lies in their unmatched public reach and their capacity to test and demonstrate science education concepts at scale with real audiences.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 engagement (2015–2018) was squarely focused on gender equity in STEM — a targeted policy-driven topic where they served as France's national anchor in the Hypatia network. By 2017 their second project had shifted toward a broader STEAM education research agenda, incorporating ICT tools, interactive media, and even entrepreneurship and innovation alongside the core science center mission. With only two projects and both completed by 2018, there is no post-2019 H2020 activity to analyze, so the longer-term trajectory cannot be confirmed from this data alone.

Their shift from a narrow gender-in-STEM focus toward broader STEAM education research with digital tools suggests they were positioning as a methodological partner for science education projects — but their H2020 activity stopped in 2018, so any future collaboration would need to confirm whether they have re-engaged with European research programs since.

How they like to work

This institution has never led an H2020 project — all two participations are as a consortium partner, which is consistent with their role as a large public science venue rather than a research-generating body. Despite only two projects, they connected with 31 unique partners across 17 countries, indicating they joined large, multi-partner CSA consortia where their value was their public platform and audience rather than scientific output. Working with them means gaining access to one of Europe's highest-footfall science communication venues as a dissemination channel, not a research co-developer.

Their two projects brought connections to 31 distinct consortium partners spread across 17 countries — a notably broad European network for such limited H2020 participation, reflecting the large multi-national nature of the CSA coordination projects they joined. No geographic concentration is evident beyond their French base.

What sets them apart

The Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie is the largest science museum in Europe by floor area, making this institution a uniquely powerful dissemination partner for any project that needs to demonstrate impact with real public audiences rather than just academic outputs. No other French partner offers this combination of physical scale, established school programs, and brand recognition in science communication. For a consortium building a Widening Participation or science education project, they bring immediate credibility and measurable public reach that most research institutions cannot replicate.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Hypatia
  The larger of the two projects (EUR 126,556) and the most thematically focused — this pan-European initiative on gender in STEM positioned the institution as France's representative in a structured national-networks model.
• CSRC
  Though the smaller grant (EUR 50,000), CSRC is notable for its breadth — combining science education research, ICT tools, interactive media, and entrepreneurship, reflecting the institution's ambition to move beyond pure public engagement into applied education research.