Manchester Science Festival is an annual

science festival A science festival is a festival that showcases science and technology with the same freshness and flair that would be expected from an arts or music festival and primarily targets the general public. These public engagement events can be varied ...

held in October in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England, and produced by the Museum of Science and Industry. It runs for eleven days, incorporating over 100 events across Greater Manchester for families and adults. Siemens has been the Festival’s headline sponsor since 2014, as part of its Curiosity Project.

Introduction

The festival launched at the Museum of Science and Industry in 2007. With over 100,000 visits to the festival in 2015, Manchester Science Festival is England's largest science festival. The

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...

describe the festival as “one of the most fun things to happen to the region in recent years, taking practical science into places you never imagined possible all over the city”.

Manchester Science Festival Programme

Each year, the programme features hands-on activities, immersive experiences, exhibitions, talks and tours. Events reflect the festival ethos of ‘part laboratory, part playground’, and aim to bring science to audiences at the Museum and at venues across Greater Manchester. The programme for Manchester Science Festival is created and produced collaboratively with partners across the North West. Over the years, this has included

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has over 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Educat ...

University of Salford , caption = Coat of ArmsUniversity of Salford , mottoeng = "Let us seek higher things" , established = 1850 - Pendleton Mechanics Institute 1896 – Royal Technical Institute, Salford 1967 – gained ...

Chester Zoo Chester Zoo is a zoo at Upton-by-Chester, Cheshire, England. Chester Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family. It is one of the UK's largest zoos at . The zoo has a total land holding of approximately . Chester Zoo is ope ...

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

, HackManchester, Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, Manchester Cathedral,

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...

and

Manchester Central Library Manchester Central Library is the headquarters of the city's library and information service in Manchester, England. Facing St Peter's Square, it was designed by E. Vincent Harris and constructed between 1930 and 1934. The form of the building ...

. The programme encourages audiences to actively participate in science. This includes science busking activities and since 2014 has included the Museum of Science and Industry’s Platform for Investigation (Pi). The Pi is sponsored by Siemens and is part of the museum’s monthly live event programme. Pi gives audiences the opportunity to meet scientists and hear about their research whilst getting involved with experiments and activities.

Exhibitions An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibitio ...

are a feature of the festival programme, including contemporary science exhibitions at the Museum of Science and Industry. Since 2014, Cape Farewell, UK have partnered with the festival to commission an exhibition inspired by James Lovelock’s

Gaia Theory The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps ...

. Notable exhibitions include Marcus Coates’ ''The Sounds of Others'' and Tania Kovats’ ''Evaporation''.

Manchester Science Festival 2015

The ninth annual science festival highlights included an adult only ball pool, artist Tania Kovats premiering ''Evaporation'', Brian Cox, Robin Ince and Jon Culshaw recording ''

The Infinite Monkey Cage ''The Infinite Monkey Cage'' is a BBC Radio 4 comedy and popular science series. Hosted by physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince, ''The Independent'' described it as a "witty and irreverent look at the world according to science". The sh ...

'', exhibition ''Kinetic Flux'' by Paul Miller and Griet Beyart and a two-day drone expo with the

’s Andy Miah.

wrote that “The Manchester Science Festival – supported by Siemens – gives people the chance to get up close and hands-on with all things loud, lively, explosive and experimental”. The ball pool won Manchester Evening News’ City Life Awards Special Events Category 2015. Festival Director: Marieke Navin

Manchester Science Festival 2014

The eighth Manchester Science Festival showcased

Marcus Coates Marcus Coates is a contemporary artist and ornithologist living in London. His works, including performances and installations that have been recorded as video art, employ shamanistic rituals in communication with "the lower world", and contrast ...

’ exhibition ''The Sounds of Others'', a 3D printing exhibition, a debate over the future of fracking with Bez from

Happy Mondays Happy Mondays are an English rock band formed in Salford in 1980. The original line-up was Shaun Ryder (vocals), his brother Paul Ryder (bass), Gary Whelan (drums), Paul Davis (keyboard), and Mark Day (guitar). Mark "Bez" Berry later joine ...

, and the building of a Mega Menger. The website Creative Tourist wrote about Manchester Science Festival’s programme, saying that, “The delight in such a diversity of diversions is being able to wander according to one’s own fancy; being cartographer to your own map. The book of Manchester is open: choose your own adventure”. Festival Director: Marieke Navin

Manchester Science Festival 2013

In its seventh year, Manchester Science Festival brought the exhibition ''Brains: the Mind as Matter'' and a supporting events programme, launched its second citizen science project, Hooked On Music and built a giant

Rube Goldberg Machine A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction-type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and (impractically) overly complicated way. Usually, these mach ...

. The Festival also won the Manchester Tourism Award for Large Tourism Event of the Year. Festival Director: Marieke Navin

Citizen Science Projects

Manchester Science Festival has been involved with two citizen science projects since 2007. The first was ''Turing's Sunflowers'' in 2012 and #HookedOnMusic, part of the festival programme since 2013.

Turing's Sunflowers

The experiment was conceived by Jonathan Swinton and led by Erinma Ochu at the Museum of Science and Industry, who said that "we hope to provide the missing evidence to test Turing's little-known theories about

Fibonacci numbers In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from ...

sunflowers ''Helianthus'' () is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of ''Helianthus'' are native to N ...

. It would be a fitting celebration of the work of Alan Turing". Citizen scientists from seven countries participated, growing over 500 sunflowers, over 450 of which conformed to the Fibonacci sequence, thereby proving Alan Turing's theory.

HookedOnMusic

Launched at the 2013 Manchester Science Festival with Ashley Burgoyne from the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

, audiences were encouraged to play a free, online game that produced results for scientific research. Researchers were looking for the hooks in music to help future research on Alzheimer's disease. By using catchy music, researchers hope to find ways to trigger therapeutic benefits for patients. Results presented at the 2014 Manchester Science Festival revealed the UK's top ten catchiest tunes, looking at just how memorable parts of songs can be. The number one catchiest song was the Spice Girls' '

Wannabe "Wannabe" is the debut single by English girl group the Spice Girls. Written and composed by the group members in collaboration with Matt Rowe and Richard "Biff" Stannard during the group's first professional songwriting session, it was produ ...

Sponsorship

Since 2014, Siemens has been the headline sponsor for the festival. Other major sponsors include the

Electricity North West Electricity North West is a British electricity distribution network operator, responsible for the administration and maintenance of the network, that distributes electricity to the North West of England excluding Merseyside and parts of Cheshi ...

and the

Waters Corporation Waters Corporation is a publicly traded Analytical Laboratory instrument and software company headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts. The company employs more than 7,800 people, with manufacturing facilities located in Milford, Taunton, Massach ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website

Museum of Science and Industry website

Facebook page

Twitter account

HookedOnMusic

Turing’s Sunflowers
Science festivals Science events in the United Kingdom Annual events in England Events in Manchester October events