Researchers’ Night raised interest virtually!

University of Jyväskylä organized Researchers’ Night on a virtual event platform. Photo: Tommi Sassi

Due to the coronavirus epidemic, Researchers’ Night was held virtually this year. At the event day, the programmes collected more than a thousand spectators! In addition, University of Jyväskylä’s day programme provided for school-aged children received wide interest in the schools of Central Finland and beyond.

– It is delighting that the audience found the well-rounded programme of Researchers’ Night also online. For example, many programmes directed to school children were fully booked well before the event; it shows that science and research interest younger and older people alike, says the national coordinator of the event, senior researcher Janne Pakarinen.

At the versatile and multidisciplinary programmes of Researchers’ Night, visitors were for example able to hear about artificial intelligence in foreign language learning, observe chemistry bangs and color lights, visit In the physics’ laboratories, play in a virtual Zombie escape room, test their memory in a game developed by psychology researchers as well as to hear performances of the latest winds of science spiced up with stand up.

Researchers’ Night is a European-wide science event, which has been arranged annually since 2005 to introduce science and researchers’ work to the public. Last year the event was organised in 11 locations across Finland with more than 28,000 visitors.

This year, Researchers’ Night was organised by the University of Jyväskylä, University of Eastern Finland, Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), French Institute, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Further information:

Event coordinator Janne Pakarinen
University of Jyväskylä
janne.pakarinen@jyu.fi / 040 805 4900

Communications Manager Liisa Harjula
University of Jyväskylä
liisa.harjula@jyu.fi/ 040 805 4403

Communications trainee Minna Selkälä
University of Jyväskylä
minna.i.selkala@jyu.fi / 040 831 6228

This Researchers’ Night project is funded under the European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, agreement number 954755.