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About us

Since 1984 Bonn Science Shop (WILA Bonn) dedicates its work to key social challenges: the enormous land use, energy transition, sustainable work fields, social justice, just to name a few. Such challenges can only be overcome when science takes them up, and citizens are able to understand even highly complex matters so well that they are able to act accordingly. This is the interface WILA Bonn is working on.

Funding

The Bonn Science Shop is a non-profit organization, working on a costcovering but not profit-orientated basis. The institution as a whole does not receive any official funding. The Bonn Science Shop only receives regular part-funding for its Education Centre because - according to the Landesweiterbildungsgesetz NRW - it is a accredited institution for further education and training.

Basically we finance our work through information, measuring and consultancy services as well as research projects supported by third party funds. The projects of the Bonn Science Shop are funded - amongst others - by the European Commission, German Federal and State Ministries, Federal Offices, and funding networks such as Klimakreis Köln, and also by foundations and single local authorities.

History

Indignation about the fact that scientists were doing their research in an ‚ivory tower‘ and citizens had no benefit from it at all - that was the motivation for a handful of students to found the Science Shop in 1984.

Science Shops in these days were also set up in 7 other German towns, following a Dutch example. But different from the situation in the Netherlands, Science Shops in Germany have not received any public funding to date. Bonn Science Shop with around 35 employees and a turnover of around three million Euros is the largest Science Shop worldwide and is economically standing on its own feet.