2.5 million people to participate in NAUKA 0+ festival

All-Russian festival NAUKA0+ will begin next week. Its goal is to popularize science among children and adults, increase interest in innovations and discoveries of world and national science, as well as increase interest in scientific knowledge about structure of the world and society. Various events will be held in more than 80 regions of Russia. Central regional hosts in 2018 are Belgorod (September 21-22), Murmansk (November 9-10), Krasnoyarsk (December 7-8) and, of course, Moscow (September 12-14).

In Moscow, in addition to traditional sites of the festival - Expo Center and the Moscow State University - the festival will be held in new central areas - the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Digital Business Center. For the first time, the festival will be held at open sky venues - the Zaryadye Park and the Nikitsky Boulevard. It's expected that the number of visitors in Moscow will reach 860 thousand people, and total number of participants in the NAUKA 0+ Festival throughout Russia will reach over 2,500,000 people.

According to rector of the Moscow State University, president of the Russian Rectors Union, Viktor Sadovnichy, "scientists always try to meet with people to tell them about their discoveries, stories about science, in order to popularize science."

He noted that science festivals have a long history: “Goals that were set then didn’t change even now. People understood long time ago that education and science are driving forces behind development of our society. Even when scientists just traveled from one city to another, those were prototypes of first universities. Science and discoveries were always interesting for society."

The first in Russia Festival of Science was held at the Moscow State University in 2006 just at the initiative of Viktor Sadovnichy. Over three days, the event was attended by over 20,000 people. Success of the first Russian Festival of Science, as well as popularity of similar festivals in other countries, demonstrated the need for annual organization of such events.

“In 2006, there was a press conference for Western European journalists, who write about science. Foreign correspondents asked me why are there no science festivals in Russia. I said that we'll going to create one. But the Academy of Sciences said that they are unnecessary. Despite that, the first festival that the Moscow State University hosted was attended by 20 thousand people. I immediately felt that this project has a bright future. Then this festival was no longer dependent on desire of one person," he said.

"Now format of this festival allows us to tell about achievements of modern science to different audiences and discuss complex topics. This year, the topic is MEGASCIENCE.

NAUKA0+ will demonstrate achievements of world science, the role of Russia in international scientific arena and its prospects in development of megaprojects.

We invited major foreign scientists from the UK, Italy, Germany, Norway, Poland. Nobel Prize winner Kip Thorn, who was at the origins of the LIGO gravity-wave collaboration, will give a lecture at the Moscow State University. Nine lectures will be held in the library of our university, around 400 lectures and events will be held in the Shuvalov building of the Moscow State University. Outstanding scientists in various fields - genetics, physiology, physicis, and many more - will give lectures. I really want to attend each lecture," Sadovnichy said.