Wissenschaftsladen Essen am HDZ der Univ.

About us

The science shops is an institution that made it its task to make the potential of knowledge of the university accessible to all citizens. It has been existing already since 1983 and was formed following the example set by similar institutions at Dutch highschools. The daily work is done first and foremost by students at the University of Essen.

In general, we take action upon request of the population by passing on questions addressed to us to the respective competent scientists and we accompany the answering process. Often it is even possible to establish a direct contact between a citizen and a scientist so that requests are answered quickly and unbureaucratically. Requests addressed to us are thereupon examined as to whether they correspond to the following criteria:

Groups or persons must not be able to carry out or to finance scientific research by themselves, they must not have any commercial interests in mind with the results of the inquiry, they must not ask questions they can easily answer by themselves (so-called "lexicon knowledge")

The main emphasis of the consultations which are in principle free of charge lies in the field of environmental protection, energy and construction biology, but we also pass on medical or socioscientific questions to competent scientists.

If inquiries about the existence of interior air polluants are concerned, the affected persons can carry out air measurements with the help of a simple gas detector. Our collaborators explain the function and handling of the gas detector and after the measurement they discuss the results with the person affected to be able to carry out further measures.

In addition to that, due to our activities of many years, we have our own reference library on important subjects of ecology, energy industry and refuse problems. Important and up-to-date subjects are taken up by our collaborators independently and are processed in the form of brochures, leaflets and exhibitions and are made accessible to the public. This is supported by data collections in computers.

We offer expert advice and procurement of scientific concepts free of charge (see above).