Winners of the Research Got Talent competition announced

17.08.2022

Among the list of winners are authors of research on how best to restore architectural monuments, talking about dementia and encouraging young people to donate blood.

The finals of the Research Got Talent competition held on 11-12 August were organised for the third year running by the international research organisation ESOMAR with support from the social change platform ToDoGood. The entrants, young researchers under 35 years of age, conducted sociological research aimed at helping CSOs to perform better.

Third place went to the Fastuna company’s corporate team Tuna which carried out a study for the White Iris Cultural Heritage Preservation Trust. The aim was to identify “blind spots” and growth areas in the charity’s PR policy in order to make the architectural heritage team’s work more effective. The researchers looked at the list of the charity’s donors interviewing 142 people from the Foundation’s database and identified options for joint working with partners, experts, craftsmen and artists. Tuna also talked to well-known city planners and exhibition organisers and created a new template for the charity’s website.

In second place was the Research Power team which carried out a study for the Altsrus Foundation. The charity asked the researchers to find out the extent of public awareness to the signs of dementia and how they felt about the disease. The team also set themselves the task of finding out if people knew where to turn for help if the need arises.

The team interviewed more than 1,600 people between 16 and 60 years of age. It turned out that the majority believed that dementia was mainly due to loss of memory, while half of respondents said that it wasn’t a disease at all and merely a sign of the natural ageing process.

The winner was the Vitamin Terabyte team and its research for the Donor Search Association. Their project focused on increasing the motivation among young people to become blood donors, in particular identifying what tools for engaging with the younger generation are already used in Russia and around the world and how we can make advertising for blood donation more effective.

The researchers’ aim was to develop practical suggestions for encouraging young people between 16 and 23 years of age to become blood donors. They conducted a survey of 1,000 young Russians and looked at what information is available about blood donoring using big data technology. As a result, the team created a Behavioural Change Wheel which shows what specific actions are needed to achieve stated objectives.

“The research revealed several unexpected insights”, said Ruslan Shekurov, CEO of the Donor Search Association. “For example, we discovered that material provided by the blood service

is almost never in demand. In addition, social advertising about giving blood despite its seemingly high quality doesn’t attract young people who are already overloaded with information. The message for the whole sector is that we still haven’t got this right”.

Details of all the research are to be made public and can be freely used by CSOs as soon as the information appears on the website (https://researchtalent.ru/#teams).

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2022/08/17/kto-viigral-reserarch-got-talent/