Seven higher education institutions in the Śląskie voivodeship stage one of Europe’s largest popular science events - Silesian Science Festival Katowice. Its four editions so far attracted 150,000 participants of hundreds of lectures and workshops, attending more than 700 presentations and appearances of more than 80 special guests. 200,000 science enthusiasts took part in online events.

Silesian Science Festival Katowice is among the finalists of last year’s edition of the Science Populariser competition staged by the Nauka w Polsce portal and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The project is intended to recognize individuals, teams and institutions making science increasingly popular among Poles.

The Festival’s organisers describe its spectacular mission in the following manner: “This is the time when we want to move science out of lecture halls and laboratories, away from universities to the International Congress Centre in Katowice. By staging the Silesian Science Festival we contribute to development of the society of knowledge, that is a community which makes key decisions based on reason and knowledge, using them for social dialogue. We are not afraid of tackling challenging scientific and social issues and strive to present science in an optimally straightforward and intriguing way”.

The Festival also became a platform generating exclusive content for science popularisers all over Poland, with particular emphasis on consolidating popular science initiatives undertaken by various institutions and teams, providing them an international scope.

Science popularisers from Poland and other European countries address the current epidemic situation in a publication on “Science popularization in the new reality. How to organize science festivals after the coronavirus pandemic?”. Its authors reflect on the future of festivals by indicating the present-day challenges for organisers of science events, drawing attention to essential changes, as well as proposing novel and unusual solutions that will make science in an accessible way reach an increasingly numerous audience.

Forthcoming science festivals in Poland and worldwide will to a large degree assume an online character. The fifth edition of the Silesian celebration of science is scheduled to take place on 29-31 May 2021.

More: slaskifestiwalnauki.pl/en