HUNICITIES · A Hungarian Night for Researchers

The 2007 edition of the Researchers’ Night in Hungary is expected to be a nation-wide series of events organised by 12 prestigious representatives of the Hungarian higher education and research community: Tempus Public Foundation as coordinator and the Agricultural Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Corvinus University of Budapest, Eötvös Loránd University, Eszterházy Károly University, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Széchenyi István University, University of Debrecen, University of Miskolc, University of Szeged and the University of West Hungary as project partners. The hereby proposed activities will take place in 8 towns all over the country and at 3 locations in the capital city ensuring that the idea of the Researchers’ Night will reach mass audiences. The institutions represent 195.000 students, 9.800 lecturers and 98 PhD schools of the national higher education system. The message we wish to put across is the importance of science and research embedded in a European context; the fully human yet important figure of the researcher carrying out his work to the benefit of the society; the appeal of a researcher’s career and Europe’s role in supporting scientific work. The proposed programmes include laboratory visits, spectacular public experiments, nuclear reactor and flight simulator visits, ethology demonstrations, skills development for disabled, creative programmes and drawing competition for kids, researchers’ pubs, a beer garden, wine tasting, a library night, art exhibitions, music concerts, theatre performances, poems and lawsuits presented by researchers, a science bus, a street ball, sport tournaments, cooking with researchers, spaghetti bridge construction and innumerable other exciting programmes. Visitors will have the opportunity to interact and converse with the more than 600 participating researchers and get more deeply acquainted with the world of science.