Assembly instructions to build your own attractive chemistry platform: experiences from the Chimiscope

Taking into consideration the gap between the decreasing interest of teenagers for careers in science, and the ever-increasing need for top-ranked scientists and engineers to maintain wealthy economies, it has become of the utmost importance for governments and public institutions to devise new initiatives that bring attractive insights and fascination of modern science to the general audience and in particular to pupils. This paper is targeted toward academic institutions engaged in the process of building incentive programmes in the broad field of molecular science. It describes the step-by-step creation of the Chimiscope, the discovery and experimentation platform inaugurated in 2011 by the University of Geneva, which proposes captivation and take-home messages on the intriguing world of molecules to visitors aged 7 to 107.