The Consulate General of Italy in Frankfurt presents the third edition of the Galileo Galilei Science&Space Festival.

The science festival takes place over four days, 14–17 June 2023, and will for the first time be held partly online. The in-person sessions are held at three different locations: the Riedberg Campus of the Goethe-Universität and the hall of the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt, and again, as in previous years, the ESA-ESOC Press Centre in Darmstadt.

The free bilingual science festival is an important, yearly opportunity to demonstrate Italy's leading role in the fields of science and technological research. It is organised by the Cultural Office of the Italian Consulate General in Frankfurt in collaboration with ESOC, ESOC’s Italian Cultural Club, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, GSI-FAIR and EUMETSAT among others.

Program highlights

Wednesday 14 June – online

The festival will be opened online by Nobel Prize-winner professor Giorgio Parisi. He will speak via Zoom connection from Italy about ‘In a Flight of Starlings. The Wonders of Complex Systems.’ Professors Alberica Toia and Luciano Rezzolla from Goethe-Universität Frankfurt will moderate the talk starting at 18:45 CEST.  

Thursday 15 June – Riedberg Campus of the Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt

The lectio magistralis of Prof. Luca Amendola (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg) discusses The World Algorithm, with the session moderated by prof. Luciano Rezzolla. The lectio magistralis takes place at 17:45 CEST, in the Main Lecture Hall of the Department of Physics (0.111). 

The President of Goethe University, Prof. Dr. Enrico Schleiff, Consul General of Italy Mr. Andrea Sama and Dean of the Faculty of Physics, Prof. Dr. Roger Erb will welcome the audience and introduce the lectio magistralis.

Friday 16 June – Hall of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt

Dr. Paolo Ferri will present his latest book ‘Le sfide di Marte – Storie di esplorazioni di un pianeta difficile’. The session starts at 18:30 CEST and will be moderated by Isabella Buffacchi (IlSole24Ore) and Michele Santoriello (Cultural Office). 

Saturday 17 June – Press Centre at ESOC, Darmstadt 

On the last day of the fair, the program runs from 16:30 until 20:15 CEST. The day starts of with Dr. Ian Carnelli (ESA) presenting ‘Mission Hera’, the first concrete attempt to create a planetary defence system against asteroid impacts. Next is a lecture by Dr. Francesca Luoni (GSI-FAIR) on ‘Cosmic Radiation: the invisible obstacle to space exploration’, a breaking news report by Dr. Flavio Murolo of EUMETSAT and finally a talk by Prof. Sara Buson (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg) on ‘Beginning a Journey across the Universe.

A buffet with Italian products offered by the Consulate General of Italy will close the event.

Details and registration

The flyer and brochure with the full bilingual (English-Italian) programme of the festival can be downloaded from the Frankfurt Consulate website. Here you can also find the login data for the online session with professor Giorgio Parisi. 

To participate in the in-person events of the festival, reservations specifying the event(s) you wish to attend can be made by emailing until 9 June 2023: francoforte.culturale@esteri.it.