TEACHER SCIENTIST NETWORK LBG

Their core work

Teacher Scientist Network (TSN) is a UK-based non-profit that builds working partnerships between practising scientists and school teachers, bringing real scientific practice into classrooms and informal learning environments. Their H2020 work spans two distinct but complementary tracks: running digital STEM challenges and awards to attract young people to science careers, and building structural open schooling frameworks that connect schools, children's universities, and the broader research community. As a practitioner network rather than an academic institution, they offer something most consortium partners cannot — direct, trusted relationships with both the teaching profession and the scientific community. Their contribution to EU projects is grounded in community mobilisation and science education practice, not theoretical research.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the earlier project (SciChallenge, 2015–2017), TSN's contribution centred on challenge-based STEM engagement — competitions, awards, and digital campaigns designed to make science attractive to secondary-age pupils. By the later project (PHERECLOS, 2019–2022), the vocabulary had shifted entirely: children's universities, open schooling, third mission, and open badges indicate a move from youth engagement campaigns toward institutional capacity-building and formal–informal learning bridges. The direction of travel is clear: from motivating individual young people toward science, to reshaping how schools and universities structurally connect with science communities at a regional level.

TSN is moving away from one-off engagement campaigns and toward building lasting institutional infrastructure — regional clusters, open credentials, and children's university partnerships — that embeds science education into the formal schooling system.

How they like to work

TSN participates exclusively as a consortium partner, never as coordinator — their value lies in what they bring (a real teacher-scientist community), not in managing projects. Despite only two projects and modest funding, they have worked with 21 distinct partners across 16 countries, which is a remarkably wide network for an organisation of this size and signals that they are sought out specifically for their practitioner access. Working with them means getting credible, ground-level engagement with schools and scientists that no university department can provide.

With 21 unique consortium partners across 16 countries from just two projects, TSN punches well above its weight in European connectivity — their network breadth reflects demand for their niche role as a practitioner bridge between science and education. The reach is pan-European, though TSN itself is rooted in the UK (Norwich).

What sets them apart

TSN occupies a rare position in EU research consortia: they are neither a university nor a research institute, but an actual on-the-ground community of teachers and scientists — which makes them a credible and irreplaceable link to real classrooms and real educators. For any project that needs authentic school engagement rather than a paper commitment to dissemination, TSN provides access that academic partners simply do not have. Consortium builders looking to satisfy requirements around open science, public engagement, or widening participation should consider TSN as the partner that makes those commitments real.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SciChallenge
  TSN's first H2020 project, deploying digital and social media to run science challenges at scale — an early example of gamified STEM outreach before it became mainstream.
• PHERECLOS
  A structurally ambitious project linking open schooling, children's universities, and open badge credentialing into regional science engagement clusters, reflecting TSN's shift toward systemic education change.