European Researchers’ Night

The last Friday in September has been designated European Researchers’ Night by the European Commission. Throughout Europe activities are organised to show how exciting research can be and that researchers are ordinary people with extraordinary jobs. The target group is the general public, especially young people. Activities include experiments, interactive activities, exhibitions, dialogue with researchers, science cafés, science shows, workshops and competitions.

European Researchers’ Night was organised for the first time in 2005 around Europe and in a number of locations in Sweden. In 2006, it was organised under the name ForskarFredag (ResearcherFriday) and was coordinated by VA. Since then, Researchers’ Night has been arranged annually and coordinated by VA in partnership with the Swedish Research Council and Vinnova.

European Researchers’ Night in Sweden is organised by universities, science centres, museums, archives, research centres, municipalities, science parks and regional development councils across the whole of Sweden.

As part of European Researchers’ Night, VA organises the Researchers’ Grand Prix and runs mass experiments with schools across Sweden.

Another part of ForskarFredag is the concept ‘borrow a researcher’. Researchers visit schools, non-profit associations or workplaces, to talk about their work as a researcher and the wider societal context of their research – either in person or online. An online booking platform facilitates the booking of researchers. Read more about Borrow a Researcher.

For more information about European Researchers’ Night in Sweden visit the ForskarFredag / European Researchers’ Night website