The proposal “Maldita Ciencia: innovation, citizenship and superpowered women” has been selected along with 231 science communication and outreach projects. In this call, 126 organizations of all kinds applied, from universities to companies, and from foundations to public research centers, which will carry out their projects to improve society’s scientific and technical education at all levels. The project will run from July 2022 to June 2023. The score obtained in the evaluation was 79 out of 100, receiving 59.5% of the project’s funding through this grant. The remaining 40.5% will be provided by Maldita.es.
The Maldita Ciencia project will produce journalistic materials following a rigorous methodology and create content on Maldita.es’s Twitch and TikTok channels to reach younger audiences, who are usually more distant from science. These same channels will also host science Q&A sessions in which the public will be able to raise questions about myths and hoaxes related to science. In addition, the project aims to incorporate innovative technology into its anti-disinformation chatbots, which will make it possible to measure the effectiveness of citizens’ access to verified information.
Across all activities, the program “Superpoderosas” will be launched, increasing the presence of women scientists as sources of information and in new-format products such as podcasts, live streams on Twitch, and media literacy content produced by Maldita Ciencia. The goal is for girls and teenagers to have more female role models and to encourage them to pursue STEM degrees.
As part of these “superpowers”, Maldita Ciencia will establish partnerships with different scientific and medical societies, universities, and research centers to debunk hoaxes related to science, and to encourage their members to register in the Maldita.es community so they can contribute their expertise as specialists.
Using its direct relationship with users, the project will add a survey at the bottom of fact-check articles on the website to measure their effectiveness, the knowledge gained, and any possible change in attitude toward disinformation. In this way, Maldita.es will be able to obtain results on the impact that access to verified scientific information has on the public.
Through these activities, the project aims to train citizens in the process of generating scientific knowledge. It also seeks to educate them in media literacy related to scientific and technological content by promoting the skills and knowledge needed to detect false or misleading information, limit its spread, and identify reliable information as useful knowledge for argumentation and decision-making. In addition, it aims to foster dialogue with citizens and active listening to their opinions on issues that involve controversy or are affected by disinformation, and finally, to inform the public about the techniques commonly used in the production and dissemination of scientific disinformation, and to effectively debunk such information when its impact is significant.