The history of Volcanoes’ Night dates back to December 2011 / January 2012, when we started working on a project proposal for the FP7 Programme of the European Commission as a Marie Curie Researchers Night action. The objective of our proposal was to use volcanoes and volcanism as a background against which the role of scientists in general and geoscientists in particular could be explained to the public. In the proposal we created detailed concepts for a broad range of activities (Science Cafés, Volcano Movies, My Day presentations, Volcano Excursions, Wine and Volcanism, etc) that could be used to engage with the public.
On 10 January 2012 our Volcanoes’ Night proposal was submitted to the EC, in which we proposed the beautiful island of La Palma as the location of the Event. On 02 April, 2012 we received the fantastic news that our proposal had been evaluated positively by the European Commission! This was a substantial victory as this application marked the first time that a Marie Curie Researchers Night action was awarded explicitly dedicated to geosciences.
Once funding for our project was secured we started looking for local partners and contributors:
- On 10-11 April, 2012 we met representatives of the municipality of Fuencaliente de La Palma, who kindly agreed to host and support the event.
- On 04 May, 2012 we met representatives of ITER/INVOLCAN, who kindly agreed to work with us on the development of the scientific content of the event.
Volcanoes’ Night officially started on 01 May 2012 and after several months of frentic work and liaison between several parties the first ever Researchers Night was organised in Fuencaliente de La Palma (Spain, Canary Islands) on 28 September 2012!
After the initial success of the first Night we decided to continue and extend the geographical scope. The second proposal was developed to cover four locations: Fuencaliente (La Palma), Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife), Yaiza (Lanzarote), La Frontera (El Hierro). For this project we invited the Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables (ITER) to participate as our partner in the application. We submitted the proposal together, which was approved on 28 March 2013. The third proposal was another joint initiative between LPRC and ITER, and this time Volcanoes’ Night was submitted under the H2020 programme of the European Commission. The application was again successful and on 13 May 2014 we were able to sign a contract for two consecutive years (2014, 2015). This was the first H2020 project ever awarded to the Canary Islands!
All these projects were implemented in close collaboration between the staff of LPRC, ITER, INVOLCAN, Consulta Europa, and several dozen other contributors. For a comprehensive list of partners please visit the Partners page.
Special thanks goes to the volunteers and young professionals mobilised by the network of ITER/INVOLCAN. They may not be famous (yet), but without their enthusiasm, hard work and dedication it would not have been possible to organise this series of events simultaneously at so many locations.
EC funding for Noche de Los Volcanes / Volcanoes’ Night ended on 1 December 2015. The project has now entered an official 5-year exploitation phase, during which our aim is to maintain information services, and widely disseminate the achievements of this project. For more information on how you can take advantage of our results visit YOUR VOLCANOES’ NIGHT.
