Introduction

Narratives on chemistry-driven scientific activities carried on by scientific public institutions have been fully part of the institutional duties of researchers since the last decades in Italy. Through a variety of formats, they address citizens and high-school students to convey messages regarding the importance of fundamental and applied scientific research for societal progress in many sectors. Furthermore, these activities highlight their linkage with some of the United Nations “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) and, in general, with sustainable development. As far as chemistry is concerned, communication is especially focused on its central role in developing sustainable processes that meet needs for products useful to humanity with negligible impact to our planet.

The need to invest in communication efforts was explored in 2018 by the European Commission, which published a report focusing on outreach as a priority alongside the activities framed and carried on within research and innovation projects [1]. In this report, the authors proposed emerging formats and practises appearing in European countries and highlighted, first to the European Commission, new ways for newcomers’ involvement and societal engagement as a key part of policy for research. The recommendations, elaborated for the H2020 Industrial technologies programme, contributed to improve a strategy for societal engagement in European research and innovation more generally.

Today new narrative formats aim at developing information flows bridging different levels of participants’ knowledge, including high level research competences, to develop the conditions for an open and inclusive dialogue. These new formats encourage participants to share insights, ideas, and feedback, helping to bridge both scientific and educational communities and society at large. Mixing bottom-up and top-down approaches can facilitate the exchange of knowledge between young researchers and stimulate a policy dialogue within a territory and regional institutions, proposing historical and actual values of excellence in chemistry with the aim of capturing the attention of young researchers and students.

In this policy perspective, which is promoted at international level by IUPAC, communication activities represent not only a step forward in scientific method but become a distinct and transversal area requiring individual efforts, time, resources, and adaptive contexts at national and international levels. This effort is particularly addressed also by the International Science Council (ISC), the non-governmental international organization having as members scientific unions such as IUPAC, but also Research Institutions such as CNR and Science Academies as well as International Scientific Associations. ISC promotes the relevance of science-policy interface and actively participates in UN projects to increase at global level societal awareness on strategic themes where science, natural and social sciences, represents a key factor to boost societal progress, such as climate change, water, health, science in exile, to name a few [2]. In this perspective, the role of institutions and of scientists implies outreach activities to add value at various policy level.

Chemistry researchers of CNR (National Research Council of Italy), beside their main research activities, are increasingly committed to communicate chemistry’s advancement and how chemical research is developed with the objective of a common wellness, higher life quality, and sustainability. For instance, the CNR institute hosting the authors of this paper (Institute of Chemistry of OrganoMetallic Compounds, ICCOM) organizes several activities, within the so-called “CNR Third Mission”, to engage high-school students and teachers and yearly contributes to the European Researchers’ Night with a great ensemble of activities in which chemistry is communicated to a wide public of citizens and students [3].

Within this systemic and active local context, researchers are also able to provide Italian participation to global initiatives for sustainable development and to collaborate with International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), International Younger Chemists Network (IYCN) and interlinked with the International Science Council (ISC) [4].

In the last years, Italian researchers, prompted by the Italian National Commission for IUPAC (NAO-CNR) [5] and by CHEMRAWN (Committee on Chemical Research Applied to World Needs), a IUPAC Committee aimed at addressing global issues as sustainability, health and equality, and at fostering communication and education [6], contributed to outreach adhering to two bottom-up world level initiatives for SDGs, i.e., the Global Women Breakfast (GWB) and the Global Conversation on Sustainability (GCS).

These initiatives consist of coordinated individual actions, country-membership based, within a joint activity: each individual action is implemented in formats freely decided and can consist of lectures, panel discussions, world cafés, and establish links among chemists for the transformation of chemistry. Below these coordinated initiatives with individual actions are briefly reported.

GWB, started in 2019, is today a consolidated appointment in many Italian institutions to present and discuss emerging aspects related to gender issues.

GCS is a recent initiative for SDGs, welcomed in Italy since its first edition in 2022 by the group of Italian IUPAC Young Observers. This group in collaboration with NAO-CNR, created in 2023 a short video showcasing in “pills” some of the main challenges related to sustainability that selected laboratories were facing in research work, and reported on possible chemical solutions that chemists are developing to meet SDGs [7, 8].

IYBSSD-International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development in 2022 was launched to jointly promote and focus the role of science for the achievement of SDGs with the governance of a joint Committee from International Scientific Unions such as the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), IUPAC and ISC. CNR, as Italian representative in IUPAC and ISC, supported this celebration year, and the NAO-CNR organized an international event dedicated to Alessandro Volta, celebrating his outstanding role in the advancement of science, technology, and innovation to meet grand challenges for the progress of humanity and to address the needs of human society. In this international policy for science initiative, the event, held in Volta’s native town Como, addressed high-school students, teachers, university professors and citizens. For the local community, for the invited high level experts and for the Presidents of IUPAC and ISC, this was a precious occasion for communicating and discussing the societal value of basic sciences in the history of humanity facing urgent challenges, as the energy transition and sustainable development [9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. Following the world success of the IYBSSD 2022, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the period 2024 to 2033 as the “International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (IDSSD)” - acknowledging the imperative to bridge across scientific disciplines and knowledge forms in order to address the complex and intricate challenges of our time [14].

Round-table discussion for GCS 2023 at National Research Council of Italy

These Italian actions achieved good success and inspired CNR-ICCOM researchers, authors of this paper and members of IUPAC CHEMRAWN (Committee for CHEMical Research Applied to World Needs) and ISC, to take part to GCS for the second year.

To this end, organizers decided to adopt a new format for the 2023 edition.

They envisaged an in-person workshop, where peers could share opinions and lived experiences from different chemistry fields. The idea was to go beyond the production of a stand-alone video and to offer a complete live experience involving researchers as well as remote participants.

This format is hugely beneficial as it provides physical and visual contexts providing an immersion with an international perspective. Then, this format was rather challenging, but also attractive being based on in-person, live conversation among colleagues, all chemists, that are working in a common research Institute located in the very large research area of Pisa. Pisa is one of the sites of ICCOM-CNR, and it is a very well-known science node hosting many relevant scientific international institutions and events. A “round-table discussion” among peer researchers could address leading scientific ongoing activities, also debating on different and cross-cutting aspects of sustainability and stimulating a science-policy discussion on how getting a knowledge increase and acceleration toward the achievement of SDGs.

Figure 1. GCS 2023 at the Institute of Chemistry of OrganoMetallic Chemistry of CNR in Pisa.

Indeed, it is not usual for researchers to find time for this type of meetings for reflecting and discussing together fundamental aspects of their mission as chemists.

This edition of GCS appeared as the right occasion for testing an informal and inclusive meeting among colleagues to discuss and debate on sustainability, in the great global framework created by IYCN and IUPAC and framed by the ISC global policy action [15].

With the workshop’s aim of including as many perspectives as possible, one person from each research group was invited to join the round-table for an open discussion on different aspects of sustainability and to address a specific contribution, as researchers in chemistry, toward the achievement of SDGs.

The feedback from colleagues was very encouraging, thanks to the general interest raised by the topic and especially it was appreciated the novelty of the event and its very informal character.

Moreover, colleagues found very attractive and exciting being part of a global network of coordinated events. The initiative was very much welcome by the ICCOM-CNR’ s Director and it was communicated on the institute website and social media.

It is interesting to point out the variety of “representatives” joining the table. They spanned from senior (including some group leaders) to junior scientists, to PhD students, depending on personal predisposition, groups composition etc.. (Figure 1). In addition, many other colleagues attended the event in the public, also actively contributing to the discussion. Students from the near chemistry department of the University of Pisa were also invited and about 10 of them joined the GCS, with an overall attendance of about 30 people.

Thanks to the colleagues’ interest and availability and to the variety of the research activities existing in the Institute, the round-table covered main scientific domains such as analytical chemistry, catalysis, NMR spectroscopy, macromolecular chemistry, and theoretical/computational chemistry.

At the beginning, the organizers introduced IUPAC, ISC, IYCN and the GCS project, especially to the youngest attendants. Then, as ice-breaking, the organizers started the round-table discussion asking the colleagues to share one or more topics of their current research activities that aim at contributing to one or more SDGs, specifying which ones.

Each intervention presented a very interesting and varied picture, reflecting the diversity of the different research laboratories. Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG#7) emerged as one of the prominent goals of the activity of physical chemists as well as of catalysis experts. Most of the efforts are devoted to the development, modeling and advanced characterization of materials for solar energy harvesting (inorganic 3^rd generation photovoltaics based on perovskites) and capturing CO₂ (Metal Organic Frameworks and membranes), as well as to the development of catalytic processes for water splitting and hydrogen evolution. The discussion was the occasion to share insights and viewpoints between research groups from a multi-perspective approach.

With regard to building circular economy, related to SDG#12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG#14 (Life below Water) and SDG#15 (Life on Land), it emerged a variety of research activities of the macromolecular research group, strongly committed to the development of processes and materials deriving from waste and non-edible organic biomass.

It clearly emerged the key role of standard and advanced characterization techniques, at the core of the activities of analytical and spectroscopy groups, for enabling the reuse, recycle and transformation of wastes and biomasses.

Sustainable chemistry research practices

From the open discussion among participants, it emerged also that it is not less important to be sustainable in our everyday laboratory’s practices, making them as sustainable good practices.

This represented the second relevant topic area of our round-table discussion, which showed that researchers are aware and keen to be as sustainable as possible in public research laboratories, but still must face several barriers. In catalysis and analytical laboratories most of the developed processes aim at using water rather than organic solvents, generally high impacting on the environment. However, the achievement of a complete green substitution still requires time and efforts, similarly to the replacement of petroleum derived reactants in macromolecular chemistry with biobased monomers. A very interesting discussion arose on the energetic cost of the different laboratories, especially the NMR and computational ones. In both cases infrastructural investments, as recovery systems for the helium used as cryogenic gas in NMR labs or heat recovering systems necessary to control the heating arising from high-speed computing operations, could strongly improve the lab energetic efficiency.

The local GCS event in Pisa proved to be participated and effective in stimulating chemistry researchers to share insights on the large subject of sustainability and to highlight their serious and determined scientific efforts to change directions toward paths for sustainability. Each researcher presented research activity pointing out green chemistry and approaches directed toward the goal of moving significant steps in key areas for the achievement of sustainable processes and products.

The workshop gave concrete insights for the overall aim of the sustainable design of key enabling technologies reducing or avoiding environmental impacts, increasing energy savings, showing economic affordability, and overall responding to the industrial demand of high value intermediates.

The discussion at GCS 2023 in Pisa also touched themes of sustainability of working times and life/work balance. Sustainability is also gender balance, which is still to be achieved, even in high-cultural level context as scientific research. Moreover, living every day in a sustainable way often requires a change of everyday habits, care and time, that are often not allowed by the rush, pressure and work-life unbalance experienced by researchers, women first. If our lifestyle does not allow to take time and slow down, the implementation of good practices in our shopping, cooking and every-day life choice will be difficult and pose something at risks. The need of a more sustainable time management emerged during the discussion from many researchers of different scientific domains.

Lessons learned and perspectives for sustainability

Outreach, as resulting from a policy implemented through formats reported in this paper, shows the importance for researchers and institutions to continue investing resources in finding agile and novel forms of communication, ideas exchange and education as a matter of policy for research towards transformation for sustainability.

However, the lessons learned can help to adopt a thinking scheme to increase the value of these messages and upgrade initiatives for a policy for research. The identification of specific elements, starting from “WHY” and moving to “HOW” and “WHAT” is the core of the Golden Circle Model [16], a famous strategy behind many successful companies, which can be useful also to researchers as a way of critically thinking about their work, for better organizing and focusing their communication efforts in dealing with pathways for sustainability.

Figure 2. A “Golden Circle” approach for scientists to be effective for sustainability.

The specification of elements as WHY, HOW, WHAT, and probably WHEN for the mid- and long-term horizon and expectations of any scientific research, can help to design coordinated actions with events (Figure 2).

“WHY” in science refers to address young researchers’ education and culture, and to exploit knowledge and ideas to improve the quality of humans’ and planet life.

“HOW” appears a very relevant element taking the focus on the utilities that facilitate novel approaches within the scientific path. Laboratories with related practices are equipped with instrumentation and materials for experimentations, so becoming key structures for a pro-active and precursor action for the sustainability goal addressing many sectors.

“WHAT” refers to conveying appropriate messages to other researchers, to educators to citizens, to students and to stakeholders and policymakers and deals with the broad area of scientific advice.

These three elements imply that the change for sustainability requires partnerships with trust and reliability which are critical in any complex society. In the current and near future, global progress urges and requires a more inclusive and responsible approach to different cultural values and collective problem-solving methods. To achieve subsequent innovation in real economy and life, other major drivers of change, such as policy, economic, society, and comparison with other key technologies are also to be assessed as requirements. The quality of the HOW element can attract and involve potential investors.

Specific and concise messages need to be tailored to avoid difficulties of comprehension and risk-aversion due to a lack of a certain level of knowledge and experimental uncertainties. Any scientific discipline is highly specialized with its own subfields and specific terminology. Therefore, researchers must be aware that different cultures and scientific languages may constitute barriers that are not always easy to overcome.

An example of practice

An example of practice can be found in the organization of the public event dedicated to the first IUPAC Periodic Table of Elements in Italian, held at CNR in Rome on November 4^th, 2024 as a result of an intensive international activity and of a collaborative IUPAC project. (Figure 3) This example shows a coordinated action for increasing outreach and the role of WHY, HOW, WHAT scheme to increase the value of scientific and research messages and in the same time upgrade initiatives for a policy for research in chemical sciences.

This project started when members of the NAO-CNR realized the quite surprising lack of an official Periodic Table of Elements in Italian, which over time generated the current use in books, websites, classes, of a variety of names for several chemical elements, especially but not only, for those most recently discovered. With the aim of providing clearness and unicity, NAO-CNR has promoted and coordinated a IUPAC project aimed at producing the first official Periodic Table of Elements in Italian [17], translation of the 2022 IUPAC Periodic Table of elements, presented in a public event in Rome on November 4^th, 2024 [18].

The event aims to share with a large public, composed of researchers, academics, schoolteachers, students, not only the result of the project but also the method used to achieve this first IUPAC edition of the Periodic Table of Elements in Italian.

In particular, considering the WHY of this project, this Periodic Table in Italian is meant to provide 60 million people currently speak Italian as native language, and especially students of primary and secondary education (age range from 6 to 18 years old) in Italy, San Marino and Southern Switzerland an official and agreed-upon translated version of the 2022 IUPAC Periodic Table of elements.

The HOW highlights the focus enabling to rise relevant resources, particularly a very interesting and committed team work, in which players have been native Italian speaking experts of chemistry and language, working in research, academy, schools and industry, with different backgrounds and representative of three different countries. The working method has been very interactive, merging different scientific, technical, and linguistic aspects, represented by the diversity of the team members.

This interesting process and the result of it is the WHAT disseminated for the first time to the large public in the public event in Rome. The event has been opened by a lecture on the fascinating history of the Periodic Table, delivered by Maurizio Peruzzini and a round-table discussion has followed, in which all the team members have shared with the public the work method and the reasons of the choice of the official Italian names of several chemical elements, answering to questions from the audience.

This event has been the first one of a series of dissemination events on the Periodic Table across Italy, which will sustain and focus the key role of chemistry, from its origins up to now and the future for building a more sustainable life.

Figure 3: Presentation of the IUPAC Periodic Table in Italian by Matteo Guidotti, held at CNR in Rome on 4 November 2024.

The Periodic Table of Elements is a still evolving 155 years old system, which testifies the key role of chemistry, from the past to react and respond to future challenges and societal demands.

The role of science towards sustainability

Within the trends in transformation for sustainability, science plays an important role that requires to be affirmed and considered at multilevel.

New processes are on track thanks to “enabling solutions” generated by scientific activities for new market sustainable approaches [19]. In the last ten years, green chemistry brought forward solutions to meet specific issues identified by some key SDGs. This transformation is under assessment as achievements are although partially met. An acceleration of science would be helpful towards sustainability for wider and global impacts. Transformation requires continuous Research & Innovation investment and evolving scientific activities but also requires synergies, collaborations and, last but not least, policy making on cross-cutting issues that can make this successful.

Therefore, initiatives promoted by IUPAC prompted a reflection within CNR on how improving chemists’ impact on sustainability including laboratories’ practises and on considering communication becoming part of scientific process. This reflection and action were brought to being effective by a synergy among CNR delegates representing CNR, the main public research institution in Italy, at the above mentioned international organizations [20]. Indeed, initiatives were also promoted by the International Science Council (ISC) for increasing the image of “science” as a “common good” for societal progress at global level, crossing all disciplinary areas, natural and social sciences.

Transformation requires resources and continuous investments in research and innovation to let evolving scientific activities as well as human synergies, collaborations and a special care of policy making on cross-cutting issues.

Overall, global initiatives in the framework of international scientific organizations, represent a key global vehicle for enhancing the big area of science communication. By overcoming time and spatial limitations, outreach under various and always novel forms enables to strategically connect global and locally tailored events dedicated to sustainability.

Feature derived from Pure and Applied Chemistry, vol. 96, no. 9, 2024, pp. 1291-1297, https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2024-0238, and slightly revised following the experience of the 2024 presentation of the IUPAC Periodic Table in Italian.