The Science Forum – Science and Everyday life

The Science Forum in Helsinki 12.−16.1.2011. The central location is the University of Helsinki Main Building (Fabianinkatu 33).
The Science Forum is a biennial science festival. It is an event of great diversity under a chosen main theme. The Forum’s mandate is to communicate to the curious public the newest, up-to-date research and the elements of a rational worldview, and to discuss the possibilities as well as the limits of science more broadly.  This is where leading scholars from various fields have a chance to introduce their branch of scholarship and the latest research results to a wide audience.
The first, individual event under the name of the Science Forum was held in 1954. The Science Forum in the current format was first organized in January 1977, thus in 2011 the Science Forum marks its 34th year. Wide-ranging science events for the general public are organized today all over Europe. Most of these were initiated in the last decade, so the Finnish Science Forum is one of the oldest in Europe.
Initially held every five and then every three years, the Forum has been a biennial event since the mid-1990s. Earlier themes include:
2009 – Charles Darwin and Evolution
2007 – Boundaries and Conflicts (in history, the physical world, life and death)
2005 – The Centennial of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
2003 – Change
2001 – Science and Life
1999 – The Future at the Millennium

The current format of the Forum is a five-day, one-night festival which consists of some 300 appearances by researchers from different parts of the country. All fields of research from the humanities and natural sciences to art and technology are represented.
The Forum’s events include lectures, exhibitions, debates, discussions, planetarium shows, Youth Day, the Night of the Sciences, book sales and national prizes. In recent years the various events of the Science Forum have garnered an audience of about 15,000. The events are also widely followed on the Internet, both live and in recording.
The theme of the 2011 Science Forum is Science and Everyday Life. A wide range of topics related to everyday life will be discussed from the point of view of various scientific disciplines. These will include:

  • the everyday work of scientific research and its significance for the development of everyday life in society;
  • the human life cycle, or everything that “moves people” – from the events of birth and death to themes of learning, sleep and sexuality;
  • the everyday dimensions of consumer culture, multicultural society, religion, the arts and the media; and everyday stumbling blocks such as difficulties of communication and emergent risks and illnesses.
  • to the question “what gets people moving” answers will be sought in recent and imminent technological advances in food production and changing constructions of the built environment and working life; in climate change, future energy sources, consumption models and the development of the global economy.
  • events related to the International Year of Chemistry 2011 will also be on the program.

The Science Forum is organized by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, the Finnish Academies of Sciences and Letters and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Information:
Secretary General Ilari Hetemäki
Science Forum
Mariankatu 5
00170 Helsinki, Finland
Tel +358 9 228 69 227, fax +358 9 228 69 291
www.tieteenpaivat.fi