Native Scientists wins BPI Fundação "la Caixa" Infância 2025 Award

Same Home Town programme was one of the 40 winning projects of the BPI Fundação "la Caixa" Infância 2025 Award, which aims to mitigate low levels of scientific literacy in Portugal.  

The BPI Fundação "la Caixa" Infância 2025 Award will support Native Scientists providing practical science workshops and direct interaction between children and scientists to approximately 900 fourth-grade children in TEIP (Priority Intervention Educational Territories) schools in the Setúbal district.

Source: BPI Fundação "la Caixa".

"Receiving the BPI Fundação 'la Caixa' Infância 2025 Award is a recognition of the transformative impact of the Same Home Town (SHT) programme. This will allow us to reach the Setúbal district more broadly, inspiring children from 13 priority groups", said Beatriz Amado, Funding Manager and Programmes Lead at Native Scientists. The approximately 900 children included in the SHT programme financed with the award, are enrolled in 13 school groups in municipalities such as Almada, Seixal, Barreiro, Palmela, Setúbal, Sines, Alcácer do Sal, and Santiago do Cacém - a district known for having high school failure rates, and with students in school social work above the national average, according to data provided by the Atlas da Educação 2025. "An award of this magnitude it's an opportunity to bring science to places with less access, encouraging more and more children to believe that they too can be scientists," continue Beatriz Amado.

Same Home Town Programme is an innovative educational programme

The SHT programme builds bridges between children and scientists from the same hometown and/or who attended the same primary school, aiming to reduce inequalities, promote scientific literacy, and support equal opportunities. By working in schools located in vulnerable contexts, and deconstructing stereotypes about science, the project broadens the horizons of these children. It opens up the possibility of science serving as a social elevator in the future, helping them escape situations of vulnerability.

This educational programme will support each child throughout the school year. Indeed, they will be involved in a pre-workshop, a workshop with a scientist, a post-workshop, an interactive scientist's notebook, and a national inter-school competition. With this increased exposure to science, Native Scientists will contribute to strengthening children's skills and resources, empowering them with learning, knowledge, experimentation, critical thinking, problem-solving, and personal fulfillment. An approach based on Circular Education and Science Capital methodologies, reinforcing the idea that "if I want, I can be a scientist." 

Since its launch in 2021, SHT has engaged more than 7,500 children nationwide, with 54% meeting a scientist for the first time through this initiative. With the support of the BPI Fundação “la Caixa” Infância 2025 Award, it will be possible to expand the program to Setúbal – one of the districts with the fewest workshops promoted by Native Scientists – and contribute to ensuring that, by 2030, no child in Portugal progresses to the Year 5 without first meeting a scientist.

About Native Scientists

Founded in 2013, Native Scientists is an award-winning, pan-European, non-profit organisation connecting children and scientists in underserved communities. It exists to broaden children’s horizons through meaningful science education, promoting scientific literacy and reducing inequalities.

About BPI Fundação "la Caixa" Infância 2025 Award

The BPI Fundação “la Caixa” Infância Award aims to promote projects across Portugal that seek to improve the living conditions of people in situations of social vulnerability. These projects should support the development and education of children and adolescents at risk, while strengthening families and the educational community as the cornerstone of socio-educational action.