The European Researchers’ Night is back

Experiments and live scientific demonstrations, exhibitions and guided tours, conferences and educational seminars, shows and concerts: in the space of one-night, scientific innovation takes to the streets and gets closer to the public. The appointment is Friday, September 28th for the European Researchers’ Night, an event that since 2005 the European Commission promotes involving thousands of researchers and research institutions in all European countries. The aim is to bring the “civil” public closer to the world of scientific research, involving it in the most amusing and interesting way possible: for this reason, too, activities are organized for the younger age groups, laboratories for high school students, but also shows and concerts with the most important names of the contemporary scene.

As usual, the last Friday in September will involve over 300 cities across the European continent: for this edition of the Researchers’ Night, in Italy 9 projects will be active for a total of 80 cities involved. The European event is funded by the European Community under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, which aim to promote the career of young researchers and researchers across Europe.

In Italy, in particular, the Researchers’ Night will see the SOCIETY project, (How do you spell RESEARCH? SOCIETY – Science, histOry, Culture, musIc, Environment, arT, technologY), dedicated to the intersections between science, culture and society. As stated on the website of the event: “SOCIETY’s goal is to present research as one of the best and most effective tools to understand, support, preserve and develop our culture, in all its nuances and variations, and reach solutions and ideas innovations useful to overcome the challenges that society has to face and thus leading to a tangible improvement in the quality of daily life”. SOCIETY wants to bring the public and researchers as close as possible: by involving them in co-planning activities, the idea is that the participants can fully understand the importance of research work in society.

Although this project is designed to reach all sections of the population, its activities target especially high school students; SOCIETY also wants to highlight the issue of gender equality, encouraging the presence of women and girls in research-related careers.

The other 8 Italian projects selected by the European Commission for Researchers’ Night are:

• B-FUTURE, which aims to bring students and citizens closer to the fascinating world of research, offering the opportunity to meet young researchers, scientists and experts involved in European programs and international level;
• BEES, which, inspired by the bees and their organization, wants to underline the incredible possibilities that science can realize through the collaboration between researchers and citizens;
• BRIGHT, acronym of “Brilliant Researchers Impact on Growth Health and Trust in research”, to symbolize the positive aspect of research and to spread a message of trust to the general public;
• ERN APULIA, designed to get closer to the world of research and to deal with researchers in Puglia;
• MEET, which wants to create a unique opportunity to meet the research, where to talk and interact with its protagonists, find out what they do in their laboratories and experience first hand how all this has an impact in our daily lives;
• SHARPER, Sharing Researchers’ Passions For Evidences And Resilience;
• SUPER SCIENCE ME, a real research and educational festival dedicated to high school students and students.