IQLANDIA OPS

Their core work

IQLANDIA OPS is a Czech public-benefit science centre based in Liberec that specialises in informal science education and public engagement. Their real-world work involves designing and delivering citizen engagement programmes — bringing scientific topics to general audiences through interactive experiences, behavioural change campaigns, and participatory outreach. In EU research projects they serve as a third-party subcontractor, providing the public-facing engagement infrastructure that academic or technical consortia typically lack in-house. Their contribution sits at the boundary between science communication and societal governance: translating complex research outputs into formats that shift public awareness and behaviour.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first project (SeaChange, 2015–2018), IQLANDIA's focus was firmly environmental and marine: ocean health, citizen engagement, and behavioural change around specific ecological issues. By 2021–2023, with TechEthos, the focus had shifted decisively toward technology ethics — horizon scanning, codes of conduct, research integrity, and ethics-by-design frameworks for high-impact emerging technologies. This is a meaningful pivot: from topic-specific public outreach (a concrete environmental issue) to process-level governance (how society should evaluate and regulate new technologies). The trend suggests IQLANDIA is positioning itself as a broader societal-impact partner, not just a marine or environment communicator.

IQLANDIA is moving from domain-specific public outreach toward broader ethics-by-design and responsible innovation governance — making them increasingly relevant to any consortium that needs to address societal acceptance of new technologies.

How they like to work

IQLANDIA participates exclusively as a third party, meaning they are subcontracted by the main consortium rather than holding a named partner role — a common arrangement for science centres that provide public engagement services without leading research. Despite this peripheral formal position, they have accumulated 38 unique consortium partners across 18 countries from just two projects, indicating they join very large, geographically diverse consortia (both SeaChange and TechEthos were multi-national coordination actions). Working with them means procuring a ready-made public engagement capability rather than building one from scratch within the consortium.

Despite only two H2020 projects, IQLANDIA has touched 38 unique partners across 18 countries — a density that reflects the large Coordination and Support Action consortia they join. Their network is genuinely pan-European with at least one transatlantic dimension (SeaChange).

What sets them apart

IQLANDIA is one of very few Czech science centres to appear in EU research consortia, which means they bring a physical informal-learning infrastructure — interactive exhibitions, live programming, school-group pipelines — that most university or industry partners simply cannot replicate. Their value proposition to a consortium is not research capacity but audience reach: they can put scientific or governance messages in front of the general public, schoolchildren, and local communities in tangible, measurable ways. For any project that needs to demonstrate societal impact or public acceptance, they fill a gap that no academic partner typically can.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SeaChange
  IQLANDIA's debut EU project, focused on transatlantic citizen behavioural change for ocean health — an unusually ambitious geographic and thematic scope for a regional science centre.
• TechEthos
  Represents a strategic evolution into technology ethics governance, placing IQLANDIA alongside policy-oriented partners working on codes of conduct and ethics-by-design for emerging technologies.