Press release

More than a hundred institutions are involved in Researchers’ Night 2020, presenting science in the form of online presentations, discussions, competitions, virtual workshops and tours. Each institution approaches the online environment differently, and the programme, a large part of which will be available on nocvedcu.cz, is therefore equally diverse. “The work on the information system and the web was extraordinarily difficult. We’d had a feeling that this year Researchers’ Night wouldn’t take place as usual, but in the primary stages of the preparation we didn’t think it would go completely online. The original tour around physical spots turns into an online platform that will provide all users with an appetite for science with hundreds of items to go through; even items that would have been basically unreal to see due to a large distance. It is next to impossible to see the whole content instantly which is why the public will have the opportunity to visit the online platform on Friday, November 11th as well as in the weeks to come,” says Lukáš Novák, a member of the development of team. Some of the institutions will launch the programme partly on their own platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube. Such items are tagged “live”.

The organisers hope not only science enthusiasts and regular visitors will enjoy the resulting online content, but also that it will be used be primary- and secondary-school teachers as an additional material in virtual classes, which are held in a great deal of schools these days.

A brand new concept this year is a set of ten videos available in the sign language, with the translation performed by the Institute of Deaf Studies, Charles University. “Right now we are in close touch with several translators, who have chosen the thematic videos by themselves. The tag ‘Neslyšící/Sign language’ found on the website can be used to enable the hearing impaired to filter out the required events. We are excited that we managed to bring this collaboration to a successful end,” said Jitřenka Navrátilová, national coordinator’s manager. Researchers’ Night is starting throughout Europe under the brand European Researchers’ Night on Friday, November 27th. Since the Czech Republic managed to make it onto this imaginary map of organisers, Eurocentres will join the programme as well to disseminate information about the EU for the general public and experts. “We have joined Researchers’ Night to educate and entertain families with children in the first place. We offer numerous activities, such as quizzes, competitions or Actionbound, a virtual trip to interesting spots with special tasks,” says Ludmila Johnová, Eurocentre department manager of the Government Office.

You can find the complete programme of all institutions involved on the website www.nocvedcu.cz.

Held since 2005, Researchers’ Night is a national event aiming to popularise science. A two-year work of the leader and national coordinator of Researchers’ Night in the Czech Republic, the University of Ostrava and Technical University of Ostrava, has yielded further results. Apart from having become part of the European structure of organisations holding European Researchers’ Night, the coordinators have also received the financial grant H2020-MSCA-NIGHT-2020, also referred to as Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.

Invitation to the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MdVdZK2mNU

Programme of the event: https://www.nocvedcu.cz/program

Jitřenka Navrátilová
Researchers’ Night national coordinator manager
koordinator@nocvedcu.cz / +420 731 068 263