Majella Dempsey, external expert for Irish training providers, and Dominique Rojat, external expert for French training providers, explain their views on the Amgen Science Teacher Training Initiative.

Are you looking to increase your students’ interest and achievements in science?

Would you like to more widely use enquiry-based methods in your classroom or lab?

Join the The Amgen Science Teacher Training Initiative programme!

It provides secondary life science teachers with meaningful professional development opportunities.

This initiative focuses on those teaching science, primarily biology and chemistry, to secondary school students aged 12 to 19 with the training sessions are available free of charge for participating teachers.

Funded by the Amgen Foundation and coordinated on its behalf by European Schoolnet, this initiative was launched in 2012 as a pilot programme in France, Germany, Ireland and Poland. Training centres in each of the four countries were carefully selected based on their experience and expertise in teacher development and enquiry-based science education. 

During 2012, the programme reached over 430 teachers. Thanks to this success, the programme has now been extended for the 2013 academic year.

“Research by the European Commission highlights that in order to increase student interest and achievement in sciences, teachers should incorporate enquiry-based methods to their classrooms. Yet, many teachers think that the available continuing professional development opportunities do not meet their needs to implement these techniques. Therefore, we expect very positive outcomes from this new initiative and are delighted by this new collaboration with the Amgen Foundation.”
Marc Durando, Executive director, European Schoolnet 


“The Amgen Foundation is committed to strengthening science education by providing vital professional development opportunities for science teachers. Amgen, as a science based company, has the privilege and the responsibility to support European teachers who are inspiring the next generation of citizens and scientists. We are especially pleased to collaborate with European Schoolnet in this effort.”
Jean Lim Terra, president, Amgen Foundation.