Cap de setmana BCN

During the week of 27 September, a whole host of activities will be taking place to celebrate the European Researchers’ Night. The aim is to introduce research and the people who work in the field to people of all ages, and to present research and innovation in a fun and accessible way. Researchers from more than 50 scientific entities across Catalonia will be offering talks, workshops, games, experiments and lots of other free activities for people of all ages. To see the programme and register for the activities, visit the website lanitdelarecerca.cat.

In addition to the in-person programme, which includes everything from talks, workshops and fairs to activities in primary and secondary schools, there will also be an online programme on the Researchers’ Night YouTube channel, where people will find a whole series of micro talks on a wide range of subject matters.

In Barcelona a number of in-person activities will be taking place between 25 and 28 September, and some will carry on throughout autumn. The activities will be taking place at more than five different venues: the Casa Golferichs and Vil·la Urània civic centres; the Gabriel García Márquez library in Sant Martí and the Montbau-Albert Pérez Baró library; the Sant Josep Civic Centre and the Auditori Barradas in Hospitalet del Llobregat; and the TecnoCampus Mataró-Maresme attached to the Pompeu Fabra University, among others.

The activities on at all these venues include numerous talks where you can discover the mathematics of the real world, learn how our brain works, how we age, learn about rare diseases, what genetics is and how to look after the environment. There will also be workshops for learning how to control a video game with your brain or how to combat antibiotic resistance.

At the heart of the Autonomous University of Barcelona campus there will be a research fair with workshops, demonstrations, games and micro talks with conversations prepared by research staff from the university and research institutes in the UAB Sphere, which includes the Institute of High Energy Physics, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics, the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, the Institute of Neurosciences, the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology and the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications. The fair opens at 5.00 pm and closes at 10.00 pm with a telescope observation workshop.

In the morning, a number of secondary schools will have the chance to visit the UAB facilities, where they will be participating in workshops and talks at the various research centres on the campus. Research staff will also be going into schools to give a series of talks.

Furthermore, the University of Barcelona, through its Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit (UCC+I), will be organising the Science Cafés at the UB, as it does every year. This is an activity aimed at the general public where experts from the UB hold a discussion with those attending on current affairs, such as the problem of access to housing, managing the drought or the evidence for educational models, among other issues. This year, the Cafés will be held every other Wednesday afternoon in the cafè of the bookshop Altaïr.

Magnet Schools

During Researchers’ Night, there will be particular emphasis on bringing research into primary and secondary schools across Catalonia.

To this end, on 27 September, some 20 schools that are part of the “Magnet. Alliances for educational success” programme, promoted by the Catalan Ministry of Education, the Jaume Bofill Foundation and the ICE-UAB, will be organising activities in their municipalities in collaboration with the research teams from different institutions, which the students, families and local residents will be involved in. What’s more, throughout the school year, some 15 research projects will be carried out in different primary and secondary schools, 10 of them promoted by the Jaume Bofill Foundation in Magnet schools and 5 by other entities in the consortium that coordinates Researchers’ Night.

Researchers’ Night is made possible thanks to co-financing from the EU research and innovation programme Horizon Europe and the collaboration of the consortium formed by the University of Girona (UdG), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the University of Lleida (UdL), the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) and the University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), with the support of the Catalan Association for Scientific Communication (ACCC) and the Jaume Bofill Foundation.