Do you have a question in mind you would like to ask of researchers? Now is the time for it, as researchers from four European universities compete in a playful Science Battle to solve puzzling questions. Send us a question and come follow the search for answers at the second EC2U Science Battle on September 30.
Science Battle is a game-like event with an objective of showing the public in a concrete way how researchers tackle a new research question and demonstrating the process of conducting research. The game was created in 2016 at the University of Turku, Finland and will now expand as a battle of the European Campuses of City Universities (EC2U) alliance.
There was first round of EC2U Science Battle last year between Universities of Pavia, Poitiers and Turku. Pavia took the victory and is now searching for competitor to the final organized in year 203.
The battle of year 2022 features Universities of Coimbra from Portugal, Iasi from Romania, Jena from Germany, and Salamanca from Spain. On the third round of the battle, the winners of previous years will face each other.
Like last year, year 2022 the game will be organised online as well as on-site if the corona restrictions allow this. The final will be held on the home campus of one of the finalists.
Send Us Your Question
The First EC2U Science Battle features three six-member, multidisciplinary teams of researchers. The teams are locked in a glass cube for three hours to solve questions submitted by the audience. Each competition venue has a host. There will also be one judge/judges, who will arbitrarily award the teams points for wit, entertainment, reasoning, and finality, and the audience will be able to give additional points according to their own preferences.
The public has a significant role to play in the implementation of the event. Questions to researchers are compiled from suggestions received from the public. The public can follow the work of the researchers enclosed in glass cubes from the outside or via internet. The audience may also help the teams and ask further questions.
The research teams are multidisciplinary, and the questions can concern anything. In the previous Science Battles, the researchers have contemplated, among other things, why stars and other celestial bodies like the Earth are almost round, whether it is ethically better to eat insects than meat, why water pipes freeze more easily when the frost eases, why man is so selfish, how many balloons are needed to lift an 80 kg person into the air, how to control eutrophication in the Baltic Sea, and what is the most decisive factor in the fight against cancer.