Agnès Villechaise, associate professor of sociology at the University of Bordeaux, also experiments with new forms of relationship between science and society that can be based on an artistic approach. "I have developed a workshop called C'est pas très académique (that's not very academic), which aims to help researchers experiment with creative ways of communicating science, using artistic media. Video, theatre, comic strips - the idea is to have the broadest possible scope so that a wide range of audiences can benefit. Presenting research work in this way enables us to show the public how we work, what the social sciences are all about, and what legitimacy we have to talk about them. It's also a way of countering certain preconceived ideas: trying to understand and explain social mechanisms is not the same as excusing certain behaviour. All these things are levers for emancipation, and art helps to convey them all the better".

Inspired by the codes of stand-up comedy, since 2014 "My thesis in 180 seconds" is aimed at high school students, but not exclusively. "Doctoral students are asked to give a presentation that is accessible to 16-year-olds. It works with a lot of classes that come back year after year. Seeing an astrophysicist who is only 10 years older than them demystify the image of the scientist in a white coat, sometimes even using certain stand-up codes, is very appealing to them", explains Delphine Charles, a scientific communication officer who for many years ran events to promote research, such as the European Researchers’ Night and the Fête de la science.

Vulgarising, yes, but without sacrificing the indispensable scientific rigour: the support provided to doctoral students is an integral part of the training still offered today by the SAPS team with the support of the Graduate Research School.

Like many doctoral students, Maureen regularly takes part in activities aimed at the general public: round tables, lectures and workshops in schools, colleges, associations, festivals and at Cap Sciences. The young researcher's efforts to raise awareness are met with great interest everywhere: "in general, those who come along to talk are quite receptive to the issue, there is little hostility, except on certain points, such as the question of the ecofeminism of witches, for example". In schools, it's more often the case that pupils don't feel involved, that the subjects raised seem remote to them. "My job then is to put myself in their shoes, at their level, to understand their references. I might mention a popular content on TikTok, for example, or a series they all know. Once I've done that, I often manage to interest them, and I try to make them understand that I don't want them to think like the authors, but rather to discover the texts. Above all, I don't want to appear as someone who knows everything, to be listened to wisely. I want to maintain an ongoing dialogue. By vulgarising, but without compromising on high standards".

Participatory science, the bridges of tomorrow?

While all the projects that build bridges between science and society place the general public at the heart of their concerns, some go even further. Such is the case with participatory science and research, a form of knowledge production in which committed citizens take part - alone or in groups.

This participatory approach is at the heart of the SSACIéTé project, which is part of the experiment in social security for food that has been underway since March 2024 in the Gironde region, involving 400 people. Researchers from the University of Bordeaux are working with these people, as well as with local politicians and community leaders, to "understand what is at stake when it comes to food and citizenship, from production issues to consumer issues", explains Sylvain Bordiec, associate professor at the University of Bordeaux and member of the Cultures et diffusion des savoirs laboratory. "We're driven by the idea of co-constructing research, while stressing that we don't want citizen participation to amount to nothing more than window-dressing. We ask people who are experimenting to fill in notebooks and answer questionnaires... It's a major challenge to question our scientific routines, and it's potentially disconcerting to involve citizens in our research when our job is to objectify what citizens do and think. So it's a process that's under construction, that's evolving, which makes it all the more exciting", concludes Sylvain Bordiec.

Participatory science, artist-researcher encounters, theme days in schools... through ever-changing formats and initiatives, an increasingly broad community is interested in and mobilised around actions "with and for society" at the University of Bordeaux. Participating in the incubation and ideation of new projects at the interface between science and society is now one of the pillars of the institution's commitment, whether on the initiative of its staff in research and training structures, or of the dedicated departments that create or support these projects.