The Native Story

Native was founded by two researchers in 2013 with the goal of connecting scientists and children across Europe to reduce inequalities, promote quality education and celebrate diversity.

Today, Native Scientist counts on a network of over 3,000 scientists and their educational programmes have established over 20,000 connections between scientists and children, particularly underserved children.

Founders

Like many good projects, Native Scientists started with a chat in a pub.

Joana Moscoso (a biologist, shown on the right) and Tatiana Correia (a physicist, shown on the left) met in London in 2012 while organising the annual meeting of PARSUK, the Portuguese Association of Researchers and Students in the United Kingdom.

Aware of the educational challenges faced by some of the lowest achievers in school, they knew they could do something about it by bringing together the scientific community and creating opportunities for those children to interact with scientists in a way that was fun and profoundly meaningful for them.

So they partnered up and started developing, delivering, and evaluating science outreach and education programmes focused on connecting scientists and children with a shared background to broaden children's horizons and promote a fair and quality science education.