CoHE's Science Communication Office Takes Science Off Campus
March 11, 2025
The Science Communication Office of the Council of Higher Education will
organize the first “Science Café” event in May simultaneously with
universities in all provinces of Türkiye.
The “Science Café” events aim to bring science and society together so that
the whole nation can talk about science at the same time.
The Science Communication Office, established last month within the Council
of Higher Education, aims to make the scientific works of our universities
visible in our country and on international platforms and to improve the
ties between science and society.
Science will meet the public on trains, ferries, mines, important
excavation sites, city squares and village coffee shops
In the “Science Café” meetings, the first of which will be held
simultaneously across Türkiye in May, university professors will come
together with citizens in public places such as cafes, women's clubs,
nation gardens, ferries and trains, mines, excavation sites, village
coffeehouses, airplanes and fields, and explain the scientific studies of
our universities in an easy-to-understand manner.
In the “Science Café” meeting, a wide range of topics from AI to breeding
studies in animal husbandry, from mucilage to smart agriculture, from organ
chips to quantum physics will be conveyed to citizens in an
easy-to-understand manner as lectures. Participants will be offered coffee
or tea, and everyone is welcome to join.
“We have done it before and we will do it again.”
Stating that the Science Café events will enable individuals from all
segments of society to access science, and that our scientists will provide
direct answers to the issues that the public is curious about, CoHE
President Erol Özvar said the following:
“We should see science communication as a means of sharing Türkiye's
scientific knowledge not only within national borders but also with the
world. It is very important to make our science history visible. For the
construction of self-confidence, it is especially important to emphasize
the contributions of our scientists in history to the history or knowledge
of world science. For example, our world-renowned mathematician Cahit Arf
asked the question 'Can a machine think and how can it think?' in a lecture
at Atatürk University in 1958. When Lady Montagu came to Edirne at the
beginning of the 18th century, she reported in her letters to the Great
Britain that a different method was applied against smallpox in Istanbul
and Edirne and that there were no mass deaths like in Europe. It is even
said that these studies played an important role in the discovery of the
vaccine in the form of injections in Europe 70 years later. In 1969, our
professors launched a rocket from METU's garden. We have many stories to
tell like these examples. Science Communication will remind society that we
have done it and we can do it again.”
The aim of “Science Café” meetings and science communication is to make the
knowledge produced by universities understandable and accessible to the
society, to increase trust in science, to make visible the contributions of
universities to their provinces and regions in terms of solutions to local
and global problems and the active role they assume for the future, and to
build a bridge between science and society.