It is rare to meet protistologists who are not passionate about their study subject. The vast majority of people, however, never get the chance to hear about the work of these researchers. Although every researcher working on protists is likely to be aware of this situation, efforts made and tools employed for dissemination of knowledge are rarely documented. Following a proposal by the Italian Society of Protistology, a workshop at the 2019 VIII European Congress of Protistology in Rome, Italy, was dedicated to protistological knowledge dissemination. Through the many interventions, we discovered the diversity of efforts to reveal the protistan world to the general public, including museum exhibitions and activities, public understanding of science events, citizen science projects, specific book publications, the use of protists in teaching at all levels from primary school children to university undergraduate students, and to a global audience via social media. The participation of the workshop delegates in the discussions indicated that presentations on the wonderful world of protists to the public not only increase the visibility and accessibility of protistology research but are also very important for the scientific community. Here we report on some of the key aspects of the presentations given in the dissemination workshop.

Biology Department University of Pisa Pisa 56126 Italy

Department of E C H T University of Macerata Macerata Italy

Department of Life and Environmental Sciences Bournemouth University Dorset BH12 5BB UK

Department of Life and Environmental Sciences Bournemouth University Dorset BH12 5BB UK; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University Fort Pierce Florida 34946 USA

Department of Life Sciences Natural History Museum London SW7 5BD UK

Department of Zoology SGTB Khalsa College University of Delhi Delhi 110007 India

Institute of Parasitology Biology Centre Czech Academy of Sciences 37005 Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche sur Mer CNRS UMR 7093 Station Zoologique Villefranche sur Mer France

School of Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine University of Camerino Camerino Italy

The Hidden World PO Box 5941 Sheffield S8 0PG UK

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