Lecturers Without Borders (LeWiBo) connects scientists with schools around the world to deliver lectures, both in-person and online. As a scientist, you can volunteer to give a lecture, participate in webinars, or support other scientists' presentations. We handle the logistics, matching you with schools and helping you prepare if needed. Initially, LeWiBo started as a network of scientists that use their travelling opportunities (e.g. to attend conferences, vacations, etc) to provide free lectures in schools all over the world. Since the COVID-19 pandemics, we’ve also started offering webinars (i.e. on-line seminars) in the form of either private lectures for a specific school or as “open events” where anyone who registers can attend. Our main aim is to bring science to schools and to inspire a new generation of young students. In case you decide to join us, we will share with you a “toolkit for scientists”. This is a step-by-step guide on how to be a part of LeWiBo’s network to support you throughout the process and assure you have a fulfilling experience.

Scientists can participate in several ways: giving a lecture on their own, co-presenting with a colleague, providing scientific support to another scientist’s lecture (paired up by LeWiBo), or assisting a teacher’s regular lesson (e.g., participating in a Q&A session after a topic has been covered).

By registering as a lecturer, you would not only have the possibility of contributing to the learning community around the world, but will also have the chance to meet other scientists with shared interests and enlarge your own professional network. We’ll help you broadcast your research and educational activities through our social media and other communication channels (such as, LeWiBo’S newsletter). Additionally, we will provide a participation certificate upon request.

During the registration process, in addition to asking you about some basic personal and professional information, we will ask you to review our code of conduct, our child safeguarding policy and our diversity, equity and inclusion statement. Please read those documents carefully and contact us if you have any questions about them. You will be required to abide by them at all times and you risk being excluded from LeWIBo activities if you violate those regulations.

Of course! Some of the lecturers in our network are not actively doing research anymore. If you have a background in STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - and you think there's something you can share with students so they can better understand and develop an interest in these subjects, please register as a lecturer. Also, please note that presenting students with examples of people who work on areas other than (academic) research is also contributing to giving them a broader view of "what a scientist does" and therefore can be very useful!

We have a special form to fill in order to propose a webinar for our catalogue, which is available to our registered scientists through their Lecturer Toolkit. Please note, only registered scientists can propose webinars, so please join our network first! In order to submit a webinar, we will ask you for a title for it (as you would like the schools to see it!), a short description and the recommended age of the targeted students. You can submit as many webinars as you choose! Please note that adding a webinar to our catalogue does not mean that you will be obliged to give it anytime soon, it just means schools will be able to know about it and request it if they find it suitable for their curriculum. We will receive and process anythe requests we get from schools and check if you are available and willing to participate. We will respect your schedule - and accept without further questions if your answer is no. Also, the format of the webinar would be adapted to your preference (e.g. a 30' talk followed by questions or a much shorter talk followed by a long Q&A session with free questions about "life a scientist").

Although the language we use for communicating with scientists is English, your webinars or lectures do not necessarily have to be in that language. If you feel more comfortable giving lectures in your native language and/or in any other language, you can tell us which languages you'd prefer to use when you fill out the form to register as a lecturer! Many of the students we organise lectures for are not fluent in English, so we try to offer as many options as possible! Also, showing them examples of scientists who speak their own language (and maybe come from their own country or even town) is another way of fighting stereotypes of who can be a scientist!

In-person lectures are rarely recorded, but schools can request permission to record a lecture for their own archives. This will always be done only with the lecturer's consent, and you are free to choose whether you allow the school to share that recording (e.g. on social media) or not. When it comes to webinars, some of them may be recorded and/or made available on our YouTube channel, but only with the consent of both the lecturer and participants. We will inform you in advance and ensure that all privacy guidelines are followed.

Our lectures are generally intended for middle and secondary school students, but you will be informed of the specific age group when you are matched with a school. We encourage you to tailor your content to the appropriate level, and we'd be happy to help you do so if you need our help! Moreover, our Lecturer Toolkit (which you'll receive upon registration) contains many resources to help you.

Of course you can! We'd be glad to help you make this an amazing first experience. We will put you in touch with other scientists that can share their experience with you, support you with materials and workshops and, if you prefer that we assist you in preparing your presentation, we can even do that. If you prefer, instead, to give it a try on your own, we will also provide you with feedback after your presentation, in order to help you improve for future editions! Our team is here to support you!

Sure! The most important thing you can do for us is to spread the word to other people that may want to join our network. You can find a few resources to help us here, along with a way to provide financial contributions, if you choose to contribute in this way. Also, we might occasionally need help with the curation of material and/or other forms of scientific support. All support will be voluntary and optional, of course!

Yes, LeWiBo provides certificates of participation to lecturers who contribute to our activities. Since our lecturer's work is volunteer, these certificates can be used to acknowledge your involvement in outreach and educational efforts.

There are several ways to help us: Spread the word: The most valuable way you can support us is by telling others who may wish to join our network! Follow us on social media, share our posts, and help broadcast our cause. Donate: if your institution has funds allocated for these types of activities and you wish to do so, we gladly welcome voluntary contributions through our website. While LeWiBo operates primarily through volunteer efforts, these donations help sustain the core structure of the organisation and ensure we can continue our work. Collaborate: If you have an idea for a partnership (for example, if you know or are part of other initiatives that share our mission), reach out to us to explore collaboration opportunities.

Lecturers Without Boarders (LeWiBo) connects scientists with schools (or any other kind of Educational Institutions) around the world to deliver lectures, both in-person and online (webinars). As a school, you can volunteer to host a private lecture for your class, either in-person or online (webinar), or attend “Open Events” organised by us and shared with the community. We handle the logistics, matching you with a scientist (or scientists) to deliver a lecture on the topic of your choice and tailored to your class’ needs. Our main goal is to bring science to schools while inspiring a new generation of young students. In case you decide to join us, we will share with you a “Toolkit for schools”. This is a step-by-step guide on how to be a part of LeWiBo’s network to support you throughout the process and assure you have a fulfilling experience.

LeWiBo is a non-profit NGO, meaning that we do not charge for any of the activities that we offer. The (hard) work of the scientists in our database is voluntary and they receive no remuneration, making all of LeWiBo’s activities free of charge for the schools or educational institutions. It is possible, however, for our members (schools, scientists and partners) to contribute financially to ensure that LeWiBo keeps running. We would greatly appreciate such contributions as they allow us to cover the running costs (website, email platform, Zoom subscription) and support outreach activities in remote areas and/or for schools that would not be able to host our traditional lectures/webinars. If your instution has the means to support us financially and you're interested in doing so, please let us know here.

Any member of staff of a school or institution can be our contact person.. It doesn't matter if you're a teacher (of any subject), a mentor or the principal of the school, you can choose to register on our database and you will be the one receiving our updates. If afterwards there's another person from your same institution who would like to request a lecture or webinar, they can simply fill the form with their email address and we will add them as a contact person for that particular event. Registering will not only allow your school to request specific webinars but it will also allow you to learn about Open Events you might want to participate in.

The answer is YES! Scientists travel a lot for different reasons and your school may be closer to a scientist’s home than you think. Maybe your school is situated just across the street from the home of a scientist! For example, we’ve successfully connected with a school in Vzvad, only accessible by river. In the rare case that we can not arrange an in-person visit, we will offer you the option of an online lecture as a plausible alternative.

Yes. Completing the registration form will only take a few minutes and will not only allow us to personalise our offers for your institution and keep you posted on events, but also have a legal record of who was involved in our ativities and when. We have a strict child safeguarding policy and a code of conduct for our members, and in order to make sure that everyone respects it, we need to keep track of all the activities organised by our members. Please note: we take you privacy (and that of your students) very seriously, so we will never use the information you provide us for anything other than organising events with you. We will never request any personal information about any individual student nor any personal information about yourself - other than your name and a contact email. We will keep the information safe and you will be able to request us to delete it (as per European GDPR regulations) whenever you want.

Of course you can! We team up with a variety of educational institutions and organisations as partners. Some of them work with several schools and help us by reaching out to schools that don't yet know about LeWiBo's activities! Please feel free to complete the registration form or contact us using the form at the bottom of this page if you have more questions or need any help.

You certainly can! Our webinar catalogue is under constant update and growth, so many more lectures might be available that are still not posted there. Also, most of our scientists are experts in broad areas and could easily adapt their lectures to meet the needs of your institution, so please feel free to request a webinar letting us know exactly what it is you're looking for and we'll do our best to find a suitable speaker.

Of course you can! Our scientists speak dozens of different languages and most of them would be more than happy to give a lecture in a language that the students will understand better... and even more so if it is their own mother tongue! When you register as a school, you will be able to tell us which language(s) your students understand, and we will make sure we find a speaker that suits your needs!

There's absolutely no limit to the number of students that can participate in a lecture, although we might combine your group with another one if there's less than 10 students. Big or small, every group is welcome! So feel free to join our network, browse our webinar catalogue or email us to get more information about our potential lectures.

Absolutely! And this is a perfect example of how our webinar catalogue might not be showing the complete picture. Most - if not all - of our scientists would be more than happy to participate in such an event! Most students around the world finish high school without ever meeting a scientist in real life. Their idea of what scientists are - what they do on a daily basis, what their interests are and even how they look and talk - sometimes comes exclusively from what they see on TV and social media. This can contribute to the propagation of certain stereotypes - e.g. regarding gender, ethnicity and the interests of scientists - and may lead to students thinking that pursuing a career in STEM is not for them. Our idea is to help scientists communicate their research, while at the same time, helping students meet real-life scientists and ask them questions about their research, as well as about their hobbies, their country of origin, their professional pathway, and more. Please feel free to request such a lecture. We'd be more than happy to find a speaker for you.

Webinars and onsite lectures typically last between 45 minutes to 1 hour, but this can be adjusted based on the needs of your students and the lecturer's availability. In terms of structure, they usually start with a short introduction of the speaker (which can be done by a LeWIBo moderator for webinars, or by the teacher or the speaker for in-person lectures), after which the speaker presents their work and then opens the floor for questions. During webinars, it is up to the school to choose whether the students will be asked or allowed to use their own personal devices or not. Based on whether the students watch in their devices or the lecture is projected for the whole class, the teacher might be requested to gather questions from the audience and repeat them to the speaker. Also, if smartphones are allowed, scientists might choose to include online polls to their presentation, but these can very easily be replaced by a show of hands if they are not - all options are valid! Finally: Students (and teachers) are strongly encouraged to ask questions and engage with the speaker during both in-person and online lectures. Depending on the lecturer and the topic, the presentations might be more or less interactive. Sometimes scientists even propose practical activities. If you prefer a specific type of student participation, you can always coordinate this with the speaker in advance!

Open Events are larger-scale activities that comprise a series of lectures and multiple participating schools (or even several different classes from a single school). They can either be on-site or online events. For on-site Open Events, we typically reach out to schools in our database that might be interested in participating based on their profile and that are within reasonable proximity to the venue. For online Open Events, we announce them through our social media channels and website, providing registration links and details. Additionally, we may contact specific schools directly via email if we believe they would be particularly interested in the event. To keep updated on Open Events and other LeWiBo activities, make sure you join our network and/or follow us on Twitter, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram!

LeWiBo does not provide individual students with certificates but can, upon request, provide the school or the teacher with one. The reason why we don't provide students with certificates is that doing so would require us to have access to the identities and contact information of students, most of which are minors, and that would go against our privacy policy and our child safeguarding policy. If the school decides to provide individual students with certificates, they are more than welcome to do so, and we would gladly provide them with templates, logos or visuals of LeWiBo to add to their certificates.

There are several ways to help us: Spread the word: The most valuable way you can support us is by telling others who may wish to join our network! Follow us on social media, share our posts, and help broadcast our cause. Donate: if your institution has funds allocated for these types of activities and you wish to do so, we gladly welcome voluntary contributions through our website. While LeWiBo operates primarily through volunteer efforts, these donations help sustain the core structure of the organisation and ensure we can continue our work. Collaborate: If you have an idea for a partnership (for example, if you know of other initiatives that share our mission), reach out to us to explore collaboration opportunities.