Sharper night - Notte Europea dei Ricercatori - Researchers' Night was held in Ancona on September 24, 2021. It was a great success for the Adswim partner Polytechnic University of Marche (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Adswim Univpm) with prof. Anna Annibaldi and researchers Silvia Illuminati, Matteo Fanelli, Federico Girolametti and their lab DEPURIAMO IL MARE: DO YOU SEA? (let’s clean the sea: do you Sea?) focused on the wastewater depuration.
They organised a demonstration laboratory on the functioning of a Depuration Plant (DP) and on the depuration process of the wastewater to the general public. The proposed activity aimed to enhance the importance of the sea as a source of resources and biodiversity. In particular, attention is focused on anthropogenic pollution and on the importance of an efficient purification system for all those urban or industrial discharges that have the sea as their last recipient.
A lot of curious citizens, family with children gathered around the Adswim stand and they were satisfied to participate to the lab and received the educational AdSWiM kits (bags, leaflets, pencils).
The SHARPER Night was created to respond to the need to enhance the figure of researchers and their role in society. To achieve this goal, the central idea of Sharper's promoters has been, since 2013, to interpret the Night as a festive opportunity to share with the general public the passions that animate researchers in their work, discovering that these passions are common to anyone. If the Night is an opportunity for involvement and discovery, it is also an example of how research communication is an act of responsibility. A commitment which underlines the cultural and political role that researchers and citizens together can and must play in social growth. For this reason, the theme of SHARPER 2021 is the passion of researchers for social challenges also linked to the achievement of goals for sustainable development. In the last two years the project has extended both in central and southern Italy and alongside the three cities that had been part of the first SHARPER project and for 2021 the cities of Ancona, Cagliari, Camerino, Catania, Genoa, Aquila, Macerata, Nuoro, Pavia, Palermo, Perugia, Sassari, Terni, Turin, Trento and Trieste.
The Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (DiSVA) is a University structure of excellence that was born in 2011 from the merger of numerous laboratories involved in a wide range of theoretical and applied research topics. Linked to the environment and the marine ecosystem, it sees the participation of over 100 scientists and technicians with highly interdisciplinary skills. AdSWiM involves the Environmental Analytical Chemistry group that evaluates the quality of coastal and marine ecosystems and propose innovative descriptors and new reference models. The researchers have been measuring the level of nutrients and trace elements in sea water for about three years to assess the pollution of the Adriatic. Their experience in statistical analysis helps identifying multiple environmental stressors that affect the variability of those ecosystems.
