The BMBF-funded project „Opening Science – New ways of science transfer using the example of the research project “Bromacker”” involved annual scientific excavations at the Lower Permian palaeontological Lagerstätte Bromacker near Tambach-Dietharz in the Thuringian Forest. Six excavation seasons were conducted between 2020 and 2025 resulting in more than 1.500 documented finds comprising sedimentary structures, plant remains and multiple invertebrate and vertebrate trace and body fossils. Among them were new finds of partial skeletons including diadectid, synapsid, and not yet identified small vertebrate specimens.

The documentation methods were enhanced due to combining field notes, photography, tachymeter measurements and drone flights. Novel excavation techniques for the Bromacker site were tested to better preserve and collect large brittle finds, such as vertebrate burrow structures.

The main goal of the BROMACKER project is to open science and processes to the public and make current and modern research visible to a broad audience. During the summer excavations at the Bromacker Lagerstätte, the research process was made accessible to the public through guided tours, on-site information areas, and active engagement by the excavation team. Media representatives were invited, and formats like family programs and social media outreach helped turn a hidden scientific undertaking into a shared experience, attracting over 2,300 visitors during 4 weeks in 2024 alone.

The involvement of the Paleontology and “Soft-Rock” groups at the Geosciences Department in the Bromacker project provided not only an excellent opportunity to conduct research but also to prominently incorporate the topic into the departmental teaching and training mandate. The perimontane Early Permian Tambach basin in the Thuringian Forest region, hosting the Bromacker site, offered numerous advantageous features: It could be reached from Jena within an hour’s driving time; had easy access by forest roads and trails; provided quarries, numerous good outcrops, several research drill cores, an active excavation site, and a museum; could be meaningfully visualized from the thin-section- to the drone imagery-scale; had no restrictions on sampling; offered diverse geoscience topics (vertebrate, invertebrate, and trace fossil paleontology, volcanology, tectonics, geophysics, sedimentology and stratigraphy, sedimentary petrography) at various levels; and was firmly embedded within established geotourism infrastructure and ecotourism public-outreach activities. The Jena subproject was led by four FSU faculty, one postdoc, and one PhD-student of complementary expertise, all with teaching interest and prior regional and thematic experience. Our investigations combined the Tambach Basin trace fossil and invertebrate inventory with its re-studied tectonic and sedimentary record into an integrated paleoenvironmental assessment that clarified the setting of the Bromacker fossil site with respect to paleogeography, hydrology, climate, vegetation, pedology, and weathering regime. Extensive classroom teaching, lab exercises, and field trips were accompanied by ca. 21 semester projects, B.Sc.- and M.Sc.-theses and a Ph.D.-dissertation. Many teaching activities extended beyond the academic realm to special-interest groups and the general public.

In the BROMACKER research project, the public is to be involved in this multidisciplinary and integrative research project through innovative communication and mediation measures in parallel to the scientific knowledge gained. This is achieved through a new, interdisciplinary transfer and communication approach: the opening up and presentation of real research processes so that the public can gain insights into the scientific process and the advancing findings during the course of the project. One highlight is the annual excavation in the middle of the Thuringian Forest, where early tetrapods, invertebrates, plants and traces of their lives and environment are excavated. At the same time, innovative communication measures are being tested and established with the participation of researchers. As the first digital curator at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, I will tell you about the exciting journey through the various formats and locations in which we have brought BROMACKER closer to the public: 360°-videos, virtual reality, augmented reality, planetarium, interactive online exhibition, social media. What do you do as a digital curator in the middle of a pandemic when there are no research results yet and research is only just beginning? It was important to us that the teams worked on an interdisciplinary basis and that the researchers themselves were involved in creating the media, sometimes having to improvise and learning many new things in the process. The ‘first-hand’ participation enriched the formats and the media products became very authentic as a result. It wasn't always easy, but it was worth it!

The multidisciplinary research project " Opening science: new ways of knowledge transfer using the example of the research project BROMACKER" (2020–2025) aims to rethink science communication . The focus is on the development of dialog-based approaches to communicate scientific work related to the unique Bromacker fossil site in Thuringia, Germany. In the past years, over 30 diverse outreach formats — digital, analogue, creative, and research-oriented — have been developed and implemented to engage a broad public. Opening up the excavation site to the general public and providing an insight into the everyday work of the researchers during the excavation was the annual highlight of the communication measures. Evaluation results confirm the project's success: 95% of visitors would recommend the experience, and direct interaction with researchers was seen as very valuable. Project members also reported enhanced communication skills, great appreciation from the visitors and a deeper awareness of the societal relevance of their research. This project demonstrates how science communication can succeed when structurally integrated, politically supported, and creatively implemented. It offers a transferable model for geoscientific and interdisciplinary research communication efforts. The results underline the importance of sustainable strategies, target group-specific formats and a culture of openness - locally embedded, but with a national impact.