The General Secretariat for Research and Innovation supports the activities of research and production organizations through competitive research programmes that provide and promote the skills necessary for the production of knowledge and innovation.

Yet again this year, the GSRI takes part in the Athens Science Festival and is represented by institutions and research centers that have designed special actions of great interest. The list includes workshops, talks, interactive exhibitions, and much more.

The National Observatory of Athens organizes a workshop for 15-18-year-olds, in which it presents the LIFE REACH AskREACH project and the Scan4Chem application while informing us about the safety of the products we buy that contain chemicals dangerous to our health. The Institute of Geodynamics tells us about earthquakes. You see and play with models and models (faults, rocks, etc.) and make your own. You learn how you can reduce your risk during an earthquake through a virtual reality game and watch clips from the theatre performance “Beat the quake!”. In collaboration with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, they teach us about space weather and the magnetic field, and how ghostly images like the aurora borealis.

The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research takes visitors below the surface of the water through the “Marine Mammals” app, which allows them to play online games and learn about marine mammals. They carry out experiments and observe the impact of climate change, plastics, and microplastics on marine organisms and in the end, they make creations from plastic waste.

The National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications digitally analyses historical recordings using advanced image processing, pattern recognition, and deep machine learning techniques and organizes a talk on “Music from the Nanocosmos” explaining the musical modeling of the world.

The Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Alexander Fleming” exploits the electricity produced by the muscles of our hand when it moves and shows us how we can control the nerves that move another person’s hand, while in another activity we see what is happening in our brain, learn about nerve cells, observe samples and try to identify them.

It also organizes events about the world of bees! We are invited to observe pollen grains under a microscope, identify their different shapes, and identify the flower or tree from which they came in order to learn about the grazing/feeding activities of a bee. We learn easy and practical ways to improve the bees’ lives by planting plant seeds that they use as food while learning how researchers understand the best areas to practice beekeeping. An international initiative of the scientific organization COLOSS.

Plus, we learn about microbes, which surfaces have the most, what happens to them when we wash our hands, what vitamins and antibiotics are, and how we can use bacteria to make art… We are also introduced to interactive methods for automated identification, visualization and analysis of disease-related biospecies associations at the network level.

The Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas will hold a talk titled “Discovering new worlds across the Universe”. During this exciting talk, Professor of Astrophysics Vassilis Charmandaris will discuss how astronomers expand our knowledge about the Cosmos using the James Webb Space Telescope.

In addition, FORTH , in collaboration with the Crete University Press, invites us to discover the secrets of the teenage brain in the event entitled “Inside your mind”: Is there a teenage brain after all?”

The Hellenic Internet Safety Centre FORTH is organizing a workshop for children (3-8 years old), explaining in simple terms internet safety and what we need to do to navigate safely.

The Athena Research Innovation & Information Technologies, with its Corallia unit, Prince’s Trust International, and the European Space Agency, is organizing a talk to inform us about the two separate Entrepreneurship Programmes it is implementing to help those who want to become entrepreneurs of the future.

In another activity, in collaboration with the Institute for Language and Speech Processing, he is organizing a workshop to highlight the potential of STEAM education through music, as explored in the EpiSTEAMmusic project. The activity brings innovative and interactive STEAM tools to AFS 2022 and invites secondary school teachers to explore them.

Finally, BRFAA in collaboration with the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology and the Computational-based Science and Technology Research Centre (CaSToRC) of the Institute of Cyprus presents HPC programmes through interactive scientific applications and video games.

Still to book your ticket?