The Novo Nordisk Foundation granted DKK 750,000 to the Young Science Association (UNF) to hold six to eight annual UNF ScienceCamps in 2018-2021. The Novo Nordisk Foundation previously granted DKK 75,000 to UNF ScienceCamps in 2017 and chose to continue its support for the summer schools.
At the camps, children and young people spend a week of their summer vacation immersing themselves in a natural science subject in the company of other young people and teachers who are themselves young students or researchers at a university. UNF is run by volunteer science students who are responsible for organizing and implementing the UNF ScienceCamps in Denmark.
“The most important purpose of UNF ScienceCamps is to create engaged young people who are interested in science and technology, and to do it in a way that creates social relationships between like-minded people. At a summer school, you are both challenged academically and experience making new friends with the same interests as yourself,” says Rasmus Rahbek Østergaard, chairman of UNF.
Evaluations among former participants in UNF ScienceCamps showed that eight out of ten participants (81 percent) had subsequently become more interested in choosing a higher education, and even more (84 percent) had become more interested in working in science or technology. UNF ScienceCamps have been held every year since 2002 on subjects including mathematics, biotech, chemistry, game development, programming, and physics.
