Human practices is just as important as the scientific aspect because communication and agreement of people is crucial for the acceptance of new technologies. In order to achieve our goals and promote synthetic biology, we organized events, meetups, lectures and talks with different people in our society.

Raising awareness among younger students can sometimes be hard! We wanted to show that our world is full of biotechnology, whether it be in health, agri-food or cosmetics. Therefore our team designed an original, innovative and fun card game to be used for next iGEM IONIS generations. This game allows students to put themselves in the shoes of a scientific engineer, like an iGEM participant!

Because engaging with the general public is so important, we created two surveys and translated them into several languages such as Spanish, German, Arabic, Chinese, and others with the help of friends and relatives. The first was aimed at consumers in order to obtain a large collection of data concerning the public perception of GMOs as well as social acceptance of SofterShock. The second was sent to the farmers (winemakers) to obtain information about climate change in their geographical area and also their opinion about SofterShock.

The right perception of GMOs is a key issue today in many countries. That’s why we discussed with several experts and iGEM teams about GMO controversies. We also tried to find the correct way to educate the population.

This year, our team created an innovative and original integrated human practices work.

We are developing an interactive map to visualize social perception of GMOs, regulations, and research news. We wish to bring new information the greater public, allowing them to rebuild their own opinion about GMOs. We also wish to help future iGEM teams to know more about the current status of GMOs all around the world.