Author: csadmin

Science dresses up to share its latest discoveries with the general public. After a long absence marked by the pandemic, Passion for Knowledge (P4K), the international science festival organised by Donostia/San Sebastian International Physics Center, returns stronger in 2023. We are delighted to announce that a new edition of the festival will be held from 2 to 7 October in Donostia/San Sebastian and Bilbao.

Passion for Knowledge comes back with a renovated look and an extensive programme of activities for all audiences, aiming to celebrate every step that science has taken for the benefit of humankind.

The festival will bring together a large cast of prestigious international scientists, including several Nobel laureates, who have been protagonists in some of the most important scientific discoveries in recent decades. The famous plenary lectures delivered by our guests will be held in the main venue of the festival, the Teatro Victoria Eugenia, where we hope bringing together, once again, a significant number of interested audience.

The programme is complemented by a whole series of activities targeted to various audiences: meetings with secondary school students, informative sessions for young researchers, exhibitions, workshops for children, shows, sessions with bertsolaris (Basque extempore verse makers), youtubers engagement, screenings, etc.

We will soon be sharing the details of the exciting programme of activities included in the 2023 edition of Passion for Knowledge!

To receive all the latest news, sign up for our newsletter:
Newsletter

Passion for Knowledge comes back with a renovated look and an extensive programme of activities for all audiences, aiming to celebrate every step that science has taken for the benefit of humankind.

The festival will bring together a large cast of prestigious international scientists, including several Nobel laureates, who have been protagonists in some of the most important scientific discoveries in recent decades. The famous plenary lectures delivered by our guests will be held in the main venue of the festival, the Teatro Victoria Eugenia, where we hope bringing together, once again, a significant number of interested audience.

The programme is complemented by a whole series of activities targeted to various audiences: meetings with secondary school students, informative sessions for young researchers, exhibitions, workshops for children, shows, sessions with bertsolaris (Basque extempore verse makers), youtubers engagement, screenings, etc.

We will soon be sharing the details of the exciting programme of activities included in the 2023 edition of Passion for Knowledge!

To receive all the latest news, sign up for our newsletter:
Newsletter

We are pleased to announce that the new edition of Passion for Knowledge also brings back the famous encounters between scientists and school students.

One of the star activities of the Passion for Knowledge festival is the top@DIPC Encounters – Zientziarekin solasean!, in which Nobel Laureates and leading scientists get together with hundreds of secondary school students from the Basque Country. This is an activity with a long history and exceptionally well received by the educational community.

The main mission of the encounters is to awaken the curiosity for science among young people and to inspire them to pursue a career in this field. The 13th edition of the top@DIPC Encounters – Zientziarekin solasean! will take place in Donostia/San Sebastian (Teatro Victoria Eugenia) and Bilbao (Bizkaia Aretoa – University of the Basque Country) during the week of the festival. In a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, students will have the chance to chat with major figures in science and to raise their doubts and questions directly with them.

Each session of the encounters will be attended by two or three internationally renowned researchers in various fields, selected from the panel of guests invited to Passion for Knowledge 2023, together with Pedro Miguel Etxenike, who will act as the moderator of each encounter. The guest scientists will be talking about their passion for science and their research and will be answering questions from the school audience, thus sharing experiences and lessons learned throughout their long professional careers.

The countdown has begun. In mid-July details of the encounters, including the panel of invited scientists, will be announced and the registration period for all schools in the Basque Country will open.

To get all the latest news about the festival, sign up for our newsletter:
Newsletter

One of the star activities of the Passion for Knowledge festival is the top@DIPC Encounters – Zientziarekin solasean!, in which Nobel Laureates and leading scientists get together with hundreds of secondary school students from the Basque Country. This is an activity with a long history and exceptionally well received by the educational community.

The main mission of the encounters is to awaken the curiosity for science among young people and to inspire them to pursue a career in this field. The 13th edition of the top@DIPC Encounters – Zientziarekin solasean! will take place in Donostia/San Sebastian (Teatro Victoria Eugenia) and Bilbao (Bizkaia Aretoa – University of the Basque Country) during the week of the festival. In a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, students will have the chance to chat with major figures in science and to raise their doubts and questions directly with them.

Each session of the encounters will be attended by two or three internationally renowned researchers in various fields, selected from the panel of guests invited to Passion for Knowledge 2023, together with Pedro Miguel Etxenike, who will act as the moderator of each encounter. The guest scientists will be talking about their passion for science and their research and will be answering questions from the school audience, thus sharing experiences and lessons learned throughout their long professional careers.

The countdown has begun. In mid-July details of the encounters, including the panel of invited scientists, will be announced and the registration period for all schools in the Basque Country will open.

To get all the latest news about the festival, sign up for our newsletter:
Newsletter

Seven Nobel laureates and other world-class experts who have led some of the most significant scientific discoveries in recent years are scheduled to participate in the Passion for Knowledge (P4K) 2019 festival, organised by the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC). A real luxury within the reach of everyone to go on learning and to promote a society with a greater scientific culture.

The Passion for Knowledge (P4K) 2019 festival will take place mainly in Donostia-San Sebastian from 30 September to 5 October 2019 with activities also scheduled in Bilbao, Pamplona and Bergara. The event is being organised by the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).

Due to an accident, fortunately without serious consequences, François ENGLERT is not going to be able to attend the Passion for Knowledge 2016 festival. His absence will be noticeable; however, the gap he is leaving is going to be covered by Álvaro de RÚJULA, who is one of the world’s most important theoretical physicists.

Alvaro de RÚJULA is researcher at CERN since 1997, and he was one of the leading members of the team responsible for starting up the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. That huge and powerful machine that a few years ago confirmed the existence of the elusive Brout-Englert-Higgs boson. A particle whose existence was predicted theoretically in 1964 precisely by François Englert among others, and whose discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Now Passion for Knowledge 2016 strength the link between these two brilliant theoretical physicists.

The lecture that Álvaro de RÚJULA will be giving is the evocatively entitled “Creation in the arts, in the sciences and in the myths (the Higgs Boson and everything else)”. It is scheduled on Wednesday, 28 September, in the afternoon, at the Victoria Eugenia Theater, closing the plenary lectures session, after Sir John PENDRY and William FRIEDMAN.

The EPS will be presenting an award to DIPC on the closing day of Passion for Knowledge 2016 in recognition of its scientific contribution and outreach activities.

The European Physical Society (EPS) will be presenting an award to the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) for its outstanding contribution in the field of condensed matter physics and materials science, as well as for its numerous, successful activities in the outreach and communication of science. Set up in the year 2000, DIPC is a research centre devoted to high-level research in materials physics, that in only a few years has become a reference of Basque science. It is a unique centre in its institutional structure and operation, which in addition to excellence in research, plays an important role in conveying scientific knowledge to society. Indeed, it will be during the closing ceremony of the third edition of Passion for Knowledge, a large outreach festival organised by DIPC, that the President of the EPS Christophe Rossel will be presenting DIPC with an official plaque to mark the recognition.

Created in 1968, the EPS is one of Europe’s most important scientific associations. Its members include 42 National Physical Societies in Europe, individuals from all fields of physics, and European research institutions, thus bringing together more than 130,000 people. As a learned society, the EPS promotes the advancement of physics, defends the interests of the European physics community and fosters international co-operation. It acts as an advocate to policy-makers and citizens, promoting the contributions of physics research to the economic, technological, social and cultural advancement in Europe.

As Pedro Miguel Echenique, President of DIPC, stated, “This recognition from such a prestigious institution like the EPS is a real honour for us, and it encourages us to keep on doing to become a worldwide reference in research and science communication.” He explained that not only the award itself is important, but also the fact that on the occasion of Passion for Knowledge 2016, the EPS had chosen the headquarters of DIPC in San Sebastian to hold its annual Executive Committee meeting on 30 September and 1 October. The President of the EPS was keen to emphasise that “we fully share the aim of the festival, which is to promote science as a key cultural activity that also contributes to social and economic progress.” To achieve that aim, from September 27 onwards, Passion for Knowledge 2016 presents an extensive programme of activities addressed to all citizens. The full programme can be seen on the festival’s website: p4k.dipc.org

Passion for Knowledge 2016 presents “The colour of the Fifties” by Martin KARPLUS.

The exhibition will be held at the San Sebastián Aquarium from September 26th to November 20th. The photographs will be on display in the T Room of the Aquarium, access to which is included in the general entrance ticket. The photographs show the inquiring mind and profoundly humanist vision of a young man who would later become a world-famous scientist.

This exhibition first shown at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, is comprised of about a hundred of images selected from among the thousands of photographs taken by Nobel Laureate Prof. Martin Karplus, during the period 1953-1965. The original Kodachrome Leica slides, many of which are now over 50 years old, were scanned by a master craftsman, and the exhibition prints were made from these images.

On Saturday morning Zientzia Kluba will take place at the Club Room of the Victoria Eugenia Theatre.

This is a mini science festival for kids that will include fun, live experiments, science storytellers, monologues, etc.

The deadline for pre-registration is open until September 8

In the wake of previous editions, during this festival of science there will also be two encounters between secondary school students and leading scientists, including various Nobel Laureates, top@DIPC Encounters – Zientziarekin solasean!, scheduled to take place in Donostia/San Sebastian and Bilbao.

Before you head off on holiday, take a look at the full programme for Passion for Knowledge 2016 and book your place right away by completing the online enrolment.

From 27 September until 1 October 2016 there’s an event you can’t afford to miss. Astrophysics, software engineering, quantum physics, neuroscience, botany, biomedicine… stories of exploration, scientific challenges, creativity and much passion for knowledge in sessions that will be combining scientific rigour with entertainment to awaken the curiosity, interest, enthusiasm and critical thought of society. Are you going to miss it?

Conceived, promoted and organised by the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), the Passion for Knowledge 2016 festival will be offering a broad programme of activities that will be gathering, scientists, leading figures from various disciplines and the general public to share scientific knowledge and to foster the participation of the public in the dissemination of science and its values.

The Passion for Knowledge 2016 festival will be held mainly in San Sebastian from 27 September to 1 October, 2016, jointly with the European Capital of Culture 2016 being held by the city this year 2016 and incorporated into its official DSS2016EU programme, within the section entitled “Conversations”. The main venue will be the hundred-year-old Victoria Eugenia Theatre, chosen to highlight the cultural nature of science. However, parallel activities have also been scheduled in Bilbao and the city of Bordeaux; the latter organised within the framework of Euskampus, the Campus of International Excellence of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

The core of this festival of science, knowledge, culture and passion will be the programme geared towards the general public. The proposal includes: Plenary Lectures given by prominent world-class researchers including several Nobel laureates; a Round Table, focused on creativity; an innovative staging to show the creative process of Bertsolaris-Basque extempore verse makers; and the well-known Naukas sessions. There will also be a Photographic Exhibition at the Aquarium. What is more, at the opening of the festival there will be a performance, namely Breaking Boundaries, a spectacle using dance, sculptures, sound and images that sets out to break the boundary between science and art.

However, there is more to Passion for Knowledge 2016 than the activities thought up for the general public. In the wake of previous editions, during this festival of science there will also be two encounters between secondary school students and leading scientists, including various Nobel Laureates, top@DIPC Encounters – Zientziarekin solasean!, scheduled to take place in Donostia/San Sebastian and Bilbao. “We want the students to be drenched by the passion for science told in the first person,” said Pedro Miguel Echenique, Chairman of Passion for Knowledge 2016.

In addition, on Saturday morning Zientzia Kluba will take place at the Club Room of the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. This is a mini science festival for kids that will include fun, live experiments, science storytellers, monologues, etc.

Furthermore, this edition of Passion for Knowledge will also have an international summer school aimed at the scientific community and specially addressed to young researchers: Dynapeutics, focusing on computing methods to study biomolecules that are relevant in optimizing molecular drugs. The school will have the participation, among others, of Martin Karplus, the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and one of the plenary speakers at the festival.

The organisers particularly want to express thanks for the economic support of the organisations that have made this festival possible: “Passion for Knowledge 2016 has been possible thanks to the ongoing support of the patrons of DIPC (Basque Government –the Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture and the Department of Economic Development and Competitiveness–, Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Donostia/San Sebastian City Hall, Kutxa, Telefónica, EDP and CAF), and also thanks to the specific funding from the Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture of the Basque Government through its BERC programme. The festival has also received funding from the FECYT, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology –Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness, and from the Donostia/San Sebastian Foundation 2016, DSS2016, European Capital of Culture”.

Cristina Uriarte, the Minister for Education, Language Policy and Culture of the Basque Government stressed that “festivals like Passion for Knowledge 2016 help to promote a scientifically well-informed society, and therefore better educated and freer”. Cristina Uriarte concluded by saying that “this is a goal that the Department of Education of the Basque Government is firmly committed to”.

Ricardo Díez Muiño, Director of DIPC, added that “this festival will help to show once again that science is an essential part of human culture. Passion for Knowledge is passion for science, and therefore is passion for culture.”

To conclude the presentation, Pedro Miguel Echenique quoted a phrase that synthesises what motivates Passion for Knowledge 2016: “Science is an aesthetically beautiful activity, culturally important and economically decisive”.

All the activities scheduled during the festival will be free of charge. Simultaneous interpretation service into Basque, Spanish and English will be available and the main sessions will be streamed live over the festival’s website. Anyone wishing to participate in Passion for Knowledge 2016 is advised to register and reserve a seat via the festival’s website: p4k.dipc.org.

For further information the press dossier is attached.

The press dossier includes the profiles of the speakers and a description of all the activities in the festival.