Abstract:

In Spain, almost 20% of the population is over 65 years’ old and according to the data obtained in the survey on social perception of science published by the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) in 2022, only 7.4% of this group of people show interest in science and technology and only the 10.8% of had participated in scientific outreach activities in the last year.

For more than 10 years, the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has been developing a scientific education and dissemination programme that has been attended by more than 10,000 people, most of them young. Within this project, we wanted to expand the range of educational activities and take it to another segment of society, the elderly.

The project aims to engage and improve the education of the senior community on the advances and benefits of tissue and organ regeneration helping to break down any barriers or prejudices they may have, improving their confidence in research, and at the same time to obtain their opinion and feedback and thus be able to improve and develop technologies that are useful and important to them.

During this year, we have performed 18 workshops with a total participation of 300 people. Each Workshop was divided into three parts, it started with a presentation and a video about organ regeneration adapted to all knowledge levels and to any visual or hearing disabilities. The talk was followed by a guided debate based on case studies made up to raise ethical concerns and opinions on the topics of interest. The final part was the collection of the participants’ opinions.

The opinions have been collected in a final report that is openly shared with the scientific community. In brief, there is a broad acceptance of regenerative treatments provided by bioengineering. However, when they involve the use of animals, some ethical concerns arise, and some might be more reluctant to use them. Most would agree to donate their cells to a biobank for research or for helping other patients and only half of them would like to be informed of the use of their cells. When talking about access requirements for regenerative therapies when reaching the medical system, 76,5% believe there should be requirements being the most mentioned, guarantee of survival, healthy habits, and age.

Overall, the process had great acceptance, the 89.7% had never participated in a similar activity and the 99.3% of the participants would recommend the workshop to a friend.

We have proven that there is a niche for outreach activities addressed to the elderly population. When specifically designed for them in a participative manner, the response of participants is very positive.

Keywords:

Bioengineering, regeneration, senior education, debate.