Dundee Science Festival

Back for 2019

We’re excited that Dundee Science Festival will be returning from 5 to 20 October 2019. We’ve already been chatting to our friends at Dundee Science Centre, so this year should be bigger than ever for us!

In the last couple of years, we’ve taken part using our own building for our public engagement work. In particular, we’ve run our very successful Street Food event with the rest of the School of Life Sciences team. This year we’re hoping to expand, both into Dundee Science Centre itself and our local communities.

What should a science festival be?

We think it’s a fascinating question. There are so many different kinds, from large-scale events like Edinburgh International Science Festival to smaller community events running in a few rooms.

What makes Dundee Science Festival stand out to us is its community engagement. They’ve taken a great deal of time to really get to know people around the city. We’re really inspired by this approach, so we want to reach out. What do you think your community would benefit from? How could science help you or your friends? It doesn’t need to be about learning facts, or blowing things up, although we do love a good fireball here and there.

Why engage with communities?

We believe that people being aware of science has lots of benefits. For one, folks can make better informed decisions. One obvious example is with medicines, where we focus lots of our research. If you have a cold, should you take an antibiotic? Lots of people probably know not to, as colds are caused by viruses. Once we get onto sore throats, though it gets trickier. Is it caused by a virus or bacterium?

We can’t promised to provide all the answers, but we’d love to share some of the tools so people at least know the right questions to ask. We can’t wait!