EXPLORATHON FESTIVAL is this year going online to connect the public with university research in 300 cities across Europe.
The festival will be virtual with Zoom workshops, Twitter-takeovers, Facebook Live events and more and will run from the 23rd to the 29th of November.
Explorathon will feature events led by universities across Scotland in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, Tayside and Shetland.
The University of Glasgow will present a diverse programme covering everything from Soviet history to neuroscience and video games.
Remember the viral ‘blue and black dress’? Explore the weird and wonderful world of illusions at ‘Master of Illusions’ (23 November), a family-friendly Zoom talk led by researchers from the Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience.
Facebook Live event ‘Digital Feelz’ (28 November) will explore why we develop emotional attachments to imaginary characters.
PhD researcher Gabe Elvery will lead the event online, which will include interactive gaming demonstrations.
How Conversation Works (26 November) will bring together video game developers and writers to learn how linguistics research can be used to create more interactive dialogue in gaming.
The event is led by philosopher Dr Steph Rennick, in collaboration with linguist Dr Sean Roberts.
Several events highlight cutting-edge research in health research, including ‘Mapping out pain’ (27 November), aimed at anyone who wants to learn and talk about pain and arthritis.
On Facebook, University of Glasgow engineers will present a virtual tour of their brain rehabilitation laboratory (25 November) and molecular biologists will highlight their latest work on proteins (26 November).
There will also be a free food-themed language taster on the morning of Saturday 28 November, led by the School of Modern Languages & Cultures.
Dr Zara Gladman, the University of Glasgow’s Public & Community Engagement Advisor, said: “The pandemic has been a really challenging time for so many people. But what it has shown is a real adaptability and creativity among our university community.
“At Explorathon 2020 you can make your own microscope using your smartphone, learn a language, dip into the latest health research and even do mathematics-inspired knitting over Zoom!
Public engagement helps us stay connected, which is 2020 is more important than ever.”
