The European Researchers’ Night is a European-wide science event organized on Friday 29th of September 2017 in altogether 14 cities all over Finland. The program includes dozens of activities like lectures, entertaining science shows and workshops from all fields of science. The events are expected to attract over 20 000 participants hungry for science and be hosted by hundreds of researchers from different branches of science. Program is free and open for everyone.
The European Researchers’ Night events have been organized since 2005 on the last Friday of September in hundreds of cities all around Europe. The event aims to promote science and the work of researchers to the public and encourage young people to follow a scientific career.
“Scientific research enjoys a strong trust among the public but its importance and resulting applications are projected to everyday life with a delay. Therefore, the impact of research can be experienced as stiff meanwhile media has a much more pronounced impact on our worldview. The European Researchers’ Night’s goal is to emphasize the importance of experts and fundamental research”, Event Coordinator, Academy Research Fellow Janne Pakarinen tells.
The public will get to know science through workshops, lectures, laboratory visits and by meeting the researchers in their work environment. Science will also come to places where it’s not normally seen. In Turku researchers discuss in the Turku Cathedral, in Kuopio the researchers will hop on the local bus and in Helsinki a science disco is organized.
During the Night the public gets to hear what the family tree of Pokémon is based on, how antibiotics can be produced from conifer and how science and art can be combined in research. The European Researchers’ Night in Finland has two themes this year: Change and Finland 100. “Finland is by many indicators one of the world’s top countries. We want to show what kind of role research has had in the 100 year course of independent Finland and how research will impact Finland’s future”, Pakarinen says.
Last year the European Researchers’ Night was organized in Finland for the first time on this scale. The event attracted over 15 000 visitors and 700 researchers all around Finland! In the whole of Europe the event had an immense amount of over one million visitors.
This year the European Researchers’ Night program will take place in Espoo, Helsinki, Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Kajaani, Kuopio, Lahti, Oulu, Rovaniemi, Savonlinna, Sodankylä, Tampere, Turku and Vantaa. Over ten Finnish universities, Finnish Science Centre Heureka, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland are in charge of the versatile program. The European Researchers’ Night events are supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 -programme.
Press photos from last year’s event: http://www.tutkijoidenyo.fi/en/photos-videos/photos
More information:
Event Coordinator
Janne Pakarinen
Academy Research Fellow, University of Jyväskylä
janne.pakarinen(at)jyu.fi / 040 8054900
Communications
Mandi Vermilä
Event- and Communications Coordinator, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
mandi.vermila(at)tsv.fi / (09) 228 69 221
http://www.tutkijoidenyo.fi/en
www.ec.europa.eu/research/researchersnight/
Marie Skłodowska-Curie: an inspiration to follow!
This European Researchers' Night project is funded by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions under contract number 722854.
The European Researchers´ Night in Finland is part of the the “Finland 100 years” centenary programme.
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