European Performing Science Night

European Performing Science Night (EPSN) is a European-wide project that proposes a set of public activities whose main objective is to bring researchers closer to civil society.
The project, led by the Épica Foundation and co-financed by the EU, is carried out in collaboration with the following entities: Instituto de Investigación Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP); Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC); Aix-Marseille University (LPL); Universitat de Barcelona (UB); and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

European Performing Science Night is based on the application of the innovative methodology of the Épica Foundation, based on the combination of scientific excellence and performing arts as a common language to promote open scienceincrease awareness of what research is, its diversity and impact on the daily life of citizens and stimulate interest in research careers, especially among young people.

From June 29 to July 1, the first action of the EPSN 2021 took place. It is a workshop in which a total of 27 researchers belonging to the Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universitat de Barcelona, ​​Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ​​Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, el Instituto de Investigación Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP) and the Laboratoire Parole et Langage (CNRS, ILCB y Aix-Marseille University). 
During these three intense days, the researchers have moved away from their laboratories and have submitted to the creative methodology of Épica. Through training, group cohesion exercises and necessary cooperation tasks, they have built challenges hybridizing fields as diverse as cognitive neuroscience, health, linguistics, climate emergency, public participation or philosophy. 
These challenges have served as an inspiration and starting point for the 28 creatives – including artists, scientists and technologists – who will participate in the second action within the framework of the European Performing Science Night 2021: a co-creation workshop.

During the workshop, representatives of each research group gave short interviews and worked on the creation of video capsules “Mito vs. Realidad” aimed at younger audiences. All this material, in which some of the issues associated with science, research work or access to scientific careers are exposed, is available on our YouTube channel..

From September 13 to 24, the second activity of the European Performing Science Night 2021 has been developed. It is a co-creation workshop based on the challenges and studies proposed by multidisciplinary scientists and researchers in order to explore the limits of knowledge and discover new forms of creation. The research and experimentation themes proposed to work on during these weeks are based on neurolinguistic convergence, the transmission of viruses and infectious diseases, the climate emergency or even the ability to manipulate stereotypes and viewer confidence, among others. All of them are the result of previous and intensive work carried out by the researchers during the month of July. The workshop participants were selected through an open call (between June 7 and July 15) to scientists, technologists and creatives. The entity received close to 200 applications, of which only 28 candidates were selected to carry out this co-creation activity together with the research groups.

The result of this second workshop has been a public presentation in the form of a scientific event, where the research groups deployed experiments in which the public participated, promoting the understanding of the impact of research on the daily life of citizens.