30 March – 14 April
From The Traitors with robots to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in a planetarium to history of poisons, the Festival has something for all the sci-curious out there as it celebrates its 35th anniversary.
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- Edinburgh Science Festival 2024 has everyone covered this year with a Shaping the Future programme, showcasing the cutting-edge technology and science to help us create a more sustainable future.
- The Festival celebrates 35th anniversary this year.
- Family favourite City Art Centre returns with five floors of hands-on science for children: the perfect family day out this Easter break. On sale from Monday 26 February.
- Big Ideas, a series of talks aimed at adults, brings some of the world’s most renowned scientists and thinkers to the Scottish capital, including Prof Chris Lintott, presenter of the Sky at Night, Prof Richard Wiseman, psychologist, magician, entertainer, Dr Erica McAlister – fly expert from the Natural History Museum, Rachel Miller, a National Geographic explorer, Laura Foster – BBC Health and Science presenter, Prof Sarah Sharples, Chief Scientific Advisor for the Dept of Transport
- Guaranteed sell-out every year, Science Nights Out are back with more creative ways to get everyone hands-on with science in a relaxed environment.
- The Festival, renowned for its unique presentations of arts colliding with STEM, creating STEAM, delves deep into the alternative future with Future Proof, a visual arts exhibition.
- The Festival takes over Edinburgh with events, talk, workshops and exhibitions taking place at the National Museum of Scotland, Dynamic Earth, The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh Zoo, Summerhall, Bayes Centre and many others, with new additions of Panmure House, Mary’s King Close and The Biscuit Factory.
- This year’s Festival shows for children 5+ include Bakineering, exploring the science of baking by Andrew Smyth – of The Great British Bake Off fame!
- Tickets are on sale now on edinburghscience.co.uk.
Edinburgh Science Festival is the first and still one of Europe’s biggest science festivals, taking place over the Easter holidays, between 30 March and 14 April.
With the 2024 theme of Shaping the Future, the Festival continues its years-long commitment to Programming for the Planet. It urges everyone to build a more sustainable future as it showcases the cutting-edge technology, including Artificial Intelligence, and science research to help make that ambition a reality.
Edinburgh Science Director and CEO, Dr Simon Gage said: “We have an amazing festival lined up for our 35th anniversary.
“The programme touches the cutting edge of invention from the worlds of AI, robotics, space exploration to the unusual such as giant rooms made of mushrooms.
“And in amongst it, we look at some more familiar things in an unusual way such as disposing of the dead, poisons, the psychology of magic and virus bingo. Whether you want to blast it, build it, bury it or bake it, we have something for you and for little ones too if you have some.”
Edinburgh Science is the world’s expert in producing live science events and the 2024 Festival is the prime example of the power of bringing people together to explore the fascinating world of science, technology, engineering and maths – and arts! – this year celebrating 35 years.
The Festival is pleased to continue the fantastic collaboration with the venue partners around the city, including City Art Centre, sponsored by Cirrus Logic, which every year becomes the Festival’s premier family destination as well as National Museum of Scotland and Dynamic Earth, each presenting a number of science events for children and adults.
This year’s programme is spread across 30 venues and 40% of the offer is free to access.
As in previous years, the Festival presents a series of BSL-interpreted, audio described and relaxed sessions.
At the City Art Centre, it also offers sensory backpacks available free of charge from the ticketing desk on the ground floor, and, for the first time, a Quiet Space on the fourth floor where visitors can take a break from the excitement. Although particularly designed for those with sensory needs, these resources are available to everyone. Visit the Festival website for more information on accessibility.
2024 HIGHLIGHTS
City Art Centre (30 March – 14 April) – five floors of hands-on science extravaganza for children between 3 and 12 years old. From making your own scab or slime to becoming an animal conservationist, investigating a crime scene or programming your own robot, City Art Centre is the most fun a family can have this Easter break! Allow 4-5 hours for the visit. On sale from Monday 26 February.
Growing Home: A New World of Materials (30 March – 14 April) – highlighting the consequences of overconsumption, this interactive exhibition shines a light on biomaterials and how they can be used in future building, packaging, fashion and more.
Standing three meters high, Growing Room is an impressive architectural structure, devised and created by the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment at Newcastle University, made from biomaterials. Grown from wool and mycelium (the root network of fungus) to give it strength and stability, the piece shows how research into the future of biomaterials could transform the built environment. It is accompanied by Symbio, a display of biomaterial themed garments by inspiring Edinburgh-based artist Emily Raemaekers.
Developed with support from Creative Scotland through the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund. Supported by the Edinburgh Napier University, School of Computing, Engineering & The Built Environment.
Edinburgh Medal (2 April) – a prestigious award founded by the City of Edinburgh Council in 1989, this year’s Medal’s recipient is Italy’s Mario Negri Institute, a pioneer non-profit research institute dedicated to open clinical and biomedical research and renowned for its ‘patient-first’ rather than ‘patent-first’ approach. Director Giuseppe Remuzzi accepts the Medal on behalf of the Institute and is set to share his insights into the benefits of the approach of this exceptional research team that does science for social good during the Medal Address on 2 April.
Creative Informatics, an ambitious research and development programme based in Edinburgh which aims to bring the city’s world-class creative industries and tech sector together, presents a fantastic series of events at this year’s Festival. It includes Unleashing the Power of Data (30 March – 7 April) exhibition highlighting the latest achievements of the creative industries using data and digital technologies; Creative AI for Creative Work (10 April) featuring creatives talking about the use of AI to enhance their creative projects; and Let’s Play (12 April), an evening to explore how creative technologies and on-screen innovation are changing how we play and experience the world around us.
Our Fragile Space: Protecting the Near-Space Environment (8 March – 18 April) – opening a few weeks before the Festival, the free to access photography exhibition on Mound Precint in the city centre of Edinburgh presents the stunning photographs of Max Alexander’s, transporting its audiences to orbital space to explore the increasing issue of space debris and satellite crowding.
FAMILY PROGRAMME
For those who performed a surgery, dug up a dinosaur or built their own wind turbine at the City Art Centre and got hands-on with mycelium in Growing Home at the National Museum of Scotland, the Festival has plenty more in store.
Also at the Museum, The Rocket Show (7 April) is an explosive family-friendly adventure, delving into rocket science as we explore forces, test materials, and prepare for launch – so strap-in, countdown, and blast-off for a show that’s out of this world! Join former Great British Bake Off finalist and creator and judge of Netflix’s Baking Impossible, Andrew Smyth for Bakineering (31 March), an edible exploration of the engineering involved in baking. In Minecraft Disease Detectives (9 April) enter the Minecraft world to become a field scientist and visit different places to collect data on how a virus is spreading. Supported by LEGO® Build the Change, the activity under the same name (8-14 April) is all about learning about biodiversity and how to protect it – using LEGO!®
Is the blue whale really the biggest animal ever to have existed? What killed the Megalodon shark? In Mysteries of Animals 3D (5 April), presenter and author Jules Howard outlines the weirdest and most elusive animal questions out there for future generations to discover. Sci-curious aged between 12 and 18 can access £5 tickets for all talks at the Museum and The Bayes Centre using code TEENTALK.
Over at the world-famous Edinburgh Zoo, Career Fayre (3-4 April) puts staff centre-stage – keepers, vets, researchers and many more – to share fascinating insights into their everyday work while at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh the family-favourite Easter Trail (30 March – 14 April) returns, and Build a Better City (11 April) imagines a city that is good for us as well as for the planet by bringing nature into it, consequently reducing pollution, flooding, regulating heat waves and helping keep our minds and bodies healthy.
A science centre and a planetarium, Dynamic Earth invites everyone to Icy Investigations (5 April), a digital workshop looking at our melting ice caps and to become Planet Protectors (4-8 April), learning about ways to protect Earth, including building a mini bug hotel. Ever wondered what lies beneath North Sea wind farm? Thanks to North Sea 3D (12 April) and Scottish Association for Marine Science, you can now see it in virtual reality!
The University of Edinburgh presents the ground-breaking robotic technologies such as Exoskeletons for enhanced mobility, the humanoids Talos and EVA, and robotic arms for handling objects in Bayes Centre Tour: Meet the Robots (12 April). Explore the Science in Your Pocket: Coins (2-6 and 9-13 April) with Museum of the Mound and step back in time to learn about Edinburgh’s rich medical history at Mary King’s Close’s Medical History Tours (30 March, 6 & 14 April). Supported and presented by the Heriot Watt University and the National Robotarium, Robotics Unveiled at the National Robotarium (12 April) is a fascinating tour of the UK’s newest and fanciest cutting-edge centre for all things robotics – including a robot petting zoo!
Out and about, Explore Beach Pebbles (11-14 April) of Edinburgh beaches or go down the Royal Mile on a walk to Discover Edinburgh’s Mathematical History. Further out, the Scottish Seabird Centre encourages everyone to become a budding marine scientist and work on their Seaside Science Skills (10-13 April), including identifying rockpool creatures.
For more family events at the Festival, click here.
ADULT PROGRAMME
Technology
Can you trust a robot? Coming face-to-face with cutting-edge technology, Two Truths and a Lie (8 April) is an interactive, Traitors-style experience exploring deception, truth and robotics at the Panmure House, home of Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith, presented and supported by the Heriot Watt University and the National Robotarium. Carefully balancing conservation and creation, Constructing Tomorrow (10 April) uses Edinburgh and its UNESCO World Heritage sites to explore the work of the innovators at the forefront of future, sustainable construction. Supported by Edinburgh Construction. In the Future of Transport (11 April), Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department for Transport Prof Sarah Sharples looks at the challenges and opportunities of transport decarbonisation. One of the Festival’s Science Nights Out events, Innovation Late with Lady MacRobert (8 April) highlights the work of the potential winners of the prestigious MacRobert Award celebrating the UK’s most exciting engineering innovators – and includes demonstrations! Supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
More technology highlights here.
Artificial Intelligence
From advances in disease diagnosis and treatment to the hidden carbon cost of AI, discover how this revolutionary technology affects global politics and society in The Future of AI (3 April) with Director of the AI & Geopolitics Project at the University of Cambridge and former Global Head of Policy for Google DeepMind Verity Harding and AI Editor at the Financial Times Madhumita Murgia. The Promises and Pitfalls of AI (8 April) with Chemical Engineer Prof. Raffaella Ocone, Quantum Scientist Prof. Daniele Faccio, and Medicinal Chemist Prof. Stefano Moro explores how AI is shaping their scientific fields and why it is so much more than just ChatGPT. Supported by Consulate General of Italy Edinburgh and Istituto Italiano di Cultura. AI for Earth (11 April) with Dr Will Cavendish, Global Digital Leader at ARUP and ex-Strategy Lead at Deep Mind, explores what role AI might play in helping us respond to the climate and nature crises. Supported by ARUP.
More AI highlights here.
Programming for the Planet
Join National Geographic Explorer and Founder of Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean Rachael Miller for a discussion around the Science and Solution for a Clean Ocean (1 April) as she guides as through the problem with plastic and the latest solutions to fight it. Supported by the U.S. Embassy.
Also looking at the new technology helping us tackle the climate crisis is Carbon Capture and Storage for a Net-Zero Future (8 April) – how much carbon dioxide can be captured and stored? What are the risks of storing carbon dioxide underground? As carbon emissions continue to rise, what are the risks of not doing so?
Audience’s favourite naturalist and author Jules Howard teams up with fly expert Dr Erica McAlister to fill us in on the latest discovering in insect sex life science in their trademark light-hearted style in Indecent Insects (5 April).
More nature and environment highlights here.
Medicine and health
What happens to our bodies after we die? From the rising demand for greener funerals, to water cremation, human composting and “body farms”, choices are no longer limited to burial or cremation. Join our panel of experts for Disposing of the Body (2 April) which lifts the shroud on the fascinating and taboo topic of alternative post-mortem care. In Free Agents (9 April), leading neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell makes the evolutionary case for free will. Our Lives with IBD (10 April) presents a short film about inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), the people affected by them, and the new research that aims to improve these conditions. Following the film, comedian Susan Morrison guides an entertaining discussion about IBD with the filmmaker Hugo Hemmati and the film’s stars, including gastroenterologist Dr Gwo-tzer Ho and IBD patient Molly Halligan.
Virus Bingo (11 April) is an interactive activity looking at what it takes for a virus to cross the divide between animals and humans.
More health and medicine highlights here.
Space
Custodians of the Cosmos (3 April) features Prof Andy Lawrence from The Royal Observatory Edinburgh and eminent photographer Max Alexander exploring why studying the skies is of vital cultural and economic importance. In Our Accidental Universe (12 April) BBC presenter of Sky at Night and Gresham Professor of Astronomy Chris Lintott takes us on an astonishing tour of bizarre accidents, big characters, and human error to tell the story of some of the most important astronomical events of the past hundred years.
Award-winning broadcaster and author Marcus Chown breaks down the big physics questions that explain the universe in The One Thing You Need to Know (12 April). For Pink Floyd’s fans out there, Planetarium Late: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (4-6 April & 11-13 April) is a mesmeric and immersive 360° show with breath-taking views of the Solar System, set to the official 1973 album in spectacular surround sound.
More space highlights here.
STEM
When STEM meets arts, amazing things happen – such as Future Proof (30 March – 26 May) at Summerhall, a series of exhibitions and events from visual artists that explore alternative futures through examination of the past and present and pose existential questions from the blurred boundary of art and science. It includes Morality Calcusus, a bio-art installation by artist Yuning Chen that recounts the endeavour of creating bread fermented with yeast-human cell hybrids in a synthetic biology lab in collaboration with biologist Dr. Elise Cachat.
There is also a theatrical tasting experience (13-14 April) accompanying the installation during which audience sample fictional hybrid organisms analogous to the ones involved in the bread making experiments.
In Post-Industrial Ecologies, Dawn Felicia Knox explores the way plants and fungi work together to undo the toxic residue of industrialisation on an example of one plot of land over 320 million years. The site, a coalmine during the industrial revolution, is a contaminated brownfield yet through the entanglement of plants and fungi it has become a vibrant ecosystem.
The University of Edinburgh’s annual Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science is awarded to Dr James Cook in recognition of his work increasing the public understanding of music in pre-Reformation Scotland.
Dr Cook gives his winning Lecture (14 April) on Linlithgow Palace, once the great pleasure palace of the kings and queens of Scotland. Aiming to recapture its lost glory, Dr Cook present an event bringing together scientific acoustic research, historical archival work, archaeology, and performance to reconstruct the music within Virtual Reality.
More STEAM highlights here.
Science Nights Out
The annual Festival Opening Party remains the capital’s hot ticket – adult-only take-over of the flagship family venue, City Art Centre! Join us for a fantastic hands-on science experience on 28 March, getting down digging up a dinosaur or dancing with a robot. The Festival’s main interactive exhibition, Growing Home, has its own late night event, Growing Home After Hours (4 April) which throws open the doors to the iconic National Museum of Scotland after hours; supported by the Festivals Expo Fund. A Night in the Undergrowth (10 April) cap-tivates everyone’s curiosity in a fun-gi evening event at the Biscuit Factory; supported by the Festivals Expo Fund.
Is Back to the Future better than Tenet? Is ET more accurate than Alien? Is The Matrix good enough to let us forgive its sequels? In Sci-Fi Snobbery (3 April) Simon Watt and Jamie Gallagher debate the merits of their favourites to work out which sci-fi movie has the most merit on both a scientific and cinematic basis.
Join mathematicians Katie Steckles and Ben Sparks for Pints and Puzzles (8 April), a mind-boggling evening of puzzles and mathematical thinking. Pit your wits against a series of beautiful, bamboozling maths brain teasers in this sociable night of fun!
And don’t forget to join Creative Informatics for a night of gaming in Let’s Play (12 April) and celebrate the latest in cutting-edge engineering (with demonstrations!) at Innovation Late with Lady MacRobert (8 April); supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
For more Science Nights Out highlights click here.
Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said: “We’re proud to support the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival – another shining example of Scotland’s place as the perfect stage to host major events and the home of world leading festivals.
“The Scottish Government is supporting the Festival with funding of £120,000 from our Expo Fund, as well as £60,000 for the PLaCE programme to support the ongoing engagement programme with schools and community groups.
“This year’s theme, Shaping the Future is relevant and interesting; using technology and AI to help build sustainable solutions for Scotland. We’re certain all the Festival’s attendees will learn and have fun in the process.”
Culture and Communities Convener, Councillor Val Walker said: “It’s fantastic to see the city gearing up for the 35th anniversary edition of the Edinburgh Science Festival. The world we live in has arguably never been more innovative or advanced, this year’s theme of ‘Shaping the Future’ pays tribute to this and questions where we go from here.
“With events across the Capital exploring themes such as space, health and medicine, and artificial intelligence to name but a few, there is truly something for everyone.
“The Science Festival is one that’s particularly close to my heart, with many fond memories of taking my son and grandchildren along over the years. I’m really looking forward to the 2024 edition and I’d encourage all our residents and visitors to get involved.”
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