SCIENCECITY · SCIENCE MEETS CITY: SCIENCE HOTEL and SCIENCE OPEN

SCIENCE MEETS CITYScience Meets City is a two-day festival, where the general public in Rotterdam and its region meets with scientists and are introduced in their research and its relevance for daily life. The festival facilitates personal encounters between the audience and researchers within an interactive environment. It invites the audience to step in the daily life of researchers and discuss research and its perception by societal stakeholders. This dialogue will be stimulated and enriched with interventions by artists. Special attention will be given to cultural heritage: the work and ideas of Erasmus. The first part of the program on Friday night is Science Hotel, which takes place in the spectacular architecture of the Nhow Hotel on the Rotterdam waterfront. The hotel is scene of a scientific conference on ‘urban related’ research topics, where researchers present and discuss their latest work. This can be either fundamental or applied, but has implications for the great societal challenges in an urbanized context and lead to innovations that improve the quality of daily life, e.g.: life science & health, sustainability, digitalization, logistics & infrastructure, social sciences, economy & lifestyle and philosophy. Entering Science Hotel, visitors from the general public become the delegates of the conference. The visitors will find the researchers who are participating in the conference to be in the process of preparing their talks; meeting peers and societal stakeholders; giving presentations; and participating in debates. Within this context visitors are involved in all these activities. The second part of the program (Saturday morning and afternoon) is Science Open, the actual conference on the campuses of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Visitors are invited to lectures and presentations, ask questions and participate in debates. During daytime, it will enable school pupils in primary and secondary school, students and parents to attend.