For the sixteenth time, Barcelona is hosting a great meeting of the public with scientific knowledge and the people who generate and disseminate it. On 10 and 11 June, the 16th Science Festival will take place on the Rambla de Prim. This is the essential date with science, open to everyone, to explore essential issues of our present and future and enjoy more than 170 activities organised by more than 150 research centres, universities, associations, facilities, outreach professionals and other organisations.

For two days, the section of the Rambla de Prim that runs from Carrer Llull to Plaça de Llevant, and the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, will bring together the twenty-four spaces that make up this edition of the Festival. This edition also coincides with the main festival of the Besòs and Maresme neighbourhoods. With the location of this year’s festival in the district of Sant Martí, the event continues the decentralised festival model, which seeks the collaboration of the neighbourhood’s facilities, organisations and institutions.

In terms of themes, the activities are grouped into eight areas and, in this edition, the contents related to five anniversaries will have special relevance: the centenary of Einstein’s visit to Barcelona, the centenary of the birth of the Catalan biochemist Joan Oró, the 550th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, the International Year of Millet and the Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).

A programme full of surprises

The 16th edition of the Festival brings to the Rambla de Prim a host of activities, the result of the participation and collaboration of more than 250 people with very different profiles and experiences: researchers, science popularisation professionals, artists…

Among the spaces of the Festival, the edition includes new ones, such as the Art and Science space, where the public can experience the hybridisation of both disciplines in first person, Artistic Algorithms, focused on the intersections between artificial intelligence and art, and Young Science, where students from schools in the neighbourhood and other parts of the city will disseminate the science they have done in their schools and institutes. In addition, the scientific sector of the neighbourhood is also present, so the 16th Festival includes the extra space of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, which this year hosts some activities at its headquarters in the Forum and offers two days of open doors, and there are activities of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Institute for Energy Research of Catalonia, very close to the stretch of the Rambla de Prim where the Festival will take place.

Most of the activities at the Festival are new to this year’s edition. A workshop will teach you how to explain cell biology through comics, an installation will bring you closer to the car of the future through an autonomous driving simulator, and another workshop will give you the opportunity to get to know the social robot ARI first-hand and interact with it. If you like to move your skeleton, the activity PlanctON and Dance: Move to the Rhythm of the Ocean Waves will make you dance just like a group of microscopic beings that are crucial to marine ecosystems.

As for shows, the Boomwhackers Orchestra concert will take you on a colourful musical experiment to explore the relationship between science and music, and in The ABCs of Science you can test your knowledge and learn at the same time. You will also have the chance to attend the live recording of Ràdio Farró‘s interviews with researchers and other participants in the Festival, or be surprised by the Ecocarroza, a very special vehicle created with the help of students from the neighbourhood’s schools and built with recycled materials, which will travel along the Rambla de Prim.

It is also worth mentioning a transversal activity that can be carried out independently during the two days of the festival. This is the game of clues Discover the enigma, where you can demonstrate your knowledge and, if you complete all the clues and solve the enigma, you will be eligible for a set of prizes related to science and popularisation.

In addition to the new features, this Festival is not lacking in classic activities such as the Mathematical Challenges, with lots of games to test your logical and deductive skills, the Solar Observation, where you will see our star live through various telescopes and filters, the Reading Space, with stories and books for all ages, or the proposals Science 0-6 and Science Nest, to approach scientific knowledge at an early age.

This is just a small sample of the enormous range of proposals that you can find at the 16th Science Festival. If you want to discover many more, come to Rambla de Prim on 10 and 11 June and experience science first hand!