Science and Beer on the Campus
Adlershof’s first Pint of Science will take place at the student café MoPs in June
We sometimes read answers to scientific questions that we didn’t even know existed. For long time, the dialogue between scientists and the non-scientist public was dysfunctional. Their relationship was comparable to that of two nations which have vastly different cultures, but indispensable trade agreements. They only talk when necessary. Events called things like “Brains and Beer”, “Science on Tap”, “Taste of Science”, or “Pint of Science” aim to change that, inviting everybody to join in. Come if you enjoy beer, fun and communication!
Can a butterfly see? What does the human brain’s defence forces look like? Can we soon heal open wounds with electrical stimulation? A 2015 Study of the Pew Research Center showed that more than third of American adults do not believe in evolution. Only about half of them believe that human activity is responsible for the current climate change. It appears the solution to science’s communication problem is not to proselytize more aggressively. Scientists need to get a better intuition for the general public and its agenda.
In 2011, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung cited Peter-Matthias Gaede, chief editor of GEO magazine, who put it in a nutshell: “The innovations presented today are created in places that are completely invisible to non-scientists. But the things people are working on behind closed lab doors are incredibly relevant.”
To communicate stories from science and research “to the greater public outside of sterile lecture halls” is the aim of Michael J. Bojdys, who recently became head of the research group “Functional Nano Materials” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). “The people have a right to know what we are doing – and they should insist on it,” says the researcher, who previously worked in Prague, Liverpool and Cambridge. He imported the idea for the “Pint of Science” from England. Beer and science go together very well in English-speaking countries. In these parts, however, academics are more reserved and reluctant, even fearful. “We want to reduce these reservations, particularly for young academics,” explains Bojdys.
In 2012, Michael Motskin und Praveen Paul, two researchers at the Imperial College London, started an event titled “Meet the Researchers”. They invited people with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis into their labs and showed them what they were working on. The positive response from visitors and researchers resulted in the idea to not only bring people into labs to meet scientists, but to bring the scientists to the people. The first Pint of Science Festival then took place in three British cities in May 2013. Now there are Pint of Science events in 21 countries, in almost 300 cities, among them also eight German cities – and for the first time on 12 July 2018 also in Adlershof.
The event will take place at the “Röhre” – German for tube, a sound-insulated engine test bed, built between 1933 and 1935 in Adlershof’s so-called Aerodynamic Park. It served to test the efficacy, capacity and durability of aircraft engines. Today, the “Röhre” is part of the student café MoPs, which has a seating capacity of 100 and organises parties, events, including the stand-up series “Laughing Spree”, and exhibitions.
The event will feature “people in research” telling their stories – entertaining, in plain language and no longer than 15 minutes. Bojdys says: “Behind every academic paper, there is a puzzle, a challenge, a motivation, a problem to be solved. That’s the story we want to tell.”
The kick-off event will have scientists from the Helmholtz-Centre Berlin, the Technical University Berlin, the HU, and the Royal Society of Chemistry talking about novel high-performance solar cells, materials for future energy storage and transformation, efficient thermochemical conversion of biomass, and new methods in chip manufacturing.
Brain researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg have found scientific proof that beer makes you happy. The conditions for happy guests at Adlershof’s first Pint of Science could not be any more ideal.
By Rico Bigelmann for Adlershof Journal