Esero.ie is a Discover Primary Science and Education and Public Engagement project. Education and Public Engagement initiatives are managed by Science Foundation Ireland on behalf of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

Read the privacy statement for Science Foundation Ireland websites here.

Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies, which are explained in the following sections:

1. What cookies are
2. Why we use them on this site
3. Granting us permission to use them
4. How to turn off cookies
5. Website function cookies: our own cookies
6. Social website cookies
7. Visitor statistics cookies (Google Analytics)

1. What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed (or “set”) on computers (including mobile devices) when they are used to browse websites. The information in the text files can later be retrieved by a website so that it can recognise the user or device. Cookies come in two types:

• A session cookie is used during a visit to a website, then deleted when the user leaves. For example, a session cookie can be used to “remember” an action that you have done on one screen when you go to another screen during the same browsing session
• A persistent cookie isn’t deleted at the end of the session, and can be used to recognise the visitor and specific information from session to session. For example, we use a persistent cookie to check whether someone has previously voted in one of our online polls (even if they voted in the poll on a previous visit)

All cookies have an “owner” – a domain specified in the cookie. For example, if you visit Scienceweek.ie and the domain of the cookie placed on your computer is Scienceweek.ie then this is a first-party cookie.

A third-party cookie either originates on or is sent to a website different from the one you are currently viewing. For example, a “Facebook like” button on our site may set a cookie that can be read by Facebook.
It can be difficult to avoid cookies as they are used by many websites nowadays. With a clear understanding of how they operate, you can take the necessary security measures to ensure that you browse the Internet confidently.

2. Why we use them on this site
The Science.ie/Scienceweek.ie website uses cookies to help provide you with the best experience we can. Our cookies help us to:

• Make our website work as you’d expect
• Remember your settings during and between visits
• Allow you to share pages with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
• Share embedded content from third-party sites such as videos
• Continuously improve our website for you

We do not use cookies to:

• Collect any personally identifiable information without your express permission
• Collect any sensitive information without your express permission
• Pass data to advertising networks
• Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
• Pay sales commissions

3. Granting us permission to use cookies
If the settings on the browser that you are using to view this website are adjusted to accept cookies we take this, and your continued use of our site, to mean that you consent to the use of cookies in the ways outlined on this page.

Should you wish to remove or not use cookies from our site you can learn how to do this below. (Bear in mind that if you do so our site may not work as you would expect, and it may limit the functionality of the site.)

4. How to turn off cookies
Some browsers automatically accept cookies. You may disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you visit our site. If you do allow cookies, you can later delete them at any time if you wish.

There are many sources of information about Internet cookies and we would encourage you to learn more so that you can make an informed decision about accepting or rejecting them. To find out how to remove cookies from your particular browser or to prevent them from being created, check your browser’s help files or read the instructions in online guides such as those onAllAboutCookies.org.

Some cookies on this site will not be set on your computer if you disable JavaScript in your browser. There is also a wide range of free, open-source browser plug-ins that allow JavaScript to be executed only by websites of your choice, and you can set one of these plug-ins so that JavaScript is not executed on this website.

This site uses Google Analytics to measure site traffic (see below). One way to opt out of having your data collected by Google Analytics is to download and install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for your browser. This add-on is available for many popular browsers.

5. Website function cookies: our own cookies
We use cookies to make our website work including:

• Remembering your search settings – using a session cookie
• Remembering if you have added an event to your event diary on the site

6. Social website cookies
Some pages on our site may include sharing buttons so that you can easily “Like” or share our content on other sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Persistent cookies may be set by AddToAny, a share button service owned by Lockerz.com which provides you with many sharing buttons all in a single package. AddToAny may also add cookies from Media6degrees.com.

The privacy implications of using these sharing buttons will vary from one social network to another and will be dependent on the privacy settings you have chosen on the particular network.
Some pages on this site may also contain embedded content from third-party websites such as videos from YouTube and Vimeo. Some of these sites may set persistent cookies when you load these pages or interact with the content.

7. Visitor statistics cookies
Like many websites, we collect statistical and other analytical information on an aggregate basis of visitors to our site. This is information that cannot be used to identify you personally or contact you, such as demographic information regarding browser types, user IP addresses, and other statistical data involving the use of our site.

We use Google Analytics, a third-party web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”) to gather and analyse these visitor statistics. Google Analytics uses persistent cookies to record site traffic information which may include:

• The top level domain from which a visitor accesses the internet
• The IP address of the computer or mobile device from which a visitor accesses our site
• The date and time of the visit to the site
• The pages accessed and the documents downloaded
• The type and version of the browser used to access the site
• The addresses of any third-party web pages (including search engines) which refer visitors to our site
• Keywords used in search engines and directories to find our website
• Keywords used to search our website

This information is used for statistical purposes only, to:

• Find out how many people are visiting our site
• Identify the type of technology they are using (for example Mac or Windows)
• Identify what pages are accessed most frequently
• Help us improve the information we are supplying to our users
• Improve the visibility of our site’s content in search engines
• Identify and troubleshoot errors arising on the website
• Make our site more user friendly

The information generated by these cookies about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on its servers. Google uses this information for the purpose of measuring your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and Internet usage.
While Google Analytics collects the IP addresses of website visitors in order to give site owners a sense of where in the world the visitors come from, Google Analytics does not report the actual IP address information to site owners who use Google Analytics.

Google may also transfer the information that it collects to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.