We are pleased to announce that the 2009 Edinburgh International Science Festival will be held from 6th to 18th April. Our flagship family event will be moving to the roomy surroundings of the City Art Centre on Market Street.

We celebrated our 20th anniversary in style by attracting over 50,000 visitors to the events, workshops, talks and exhibitions this year in 14 venues across the city including National Museums Scotland, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Our Dynamic Earth. The programme of popular science talks smashed previous records, with a number of events sold out, including Richard Dawkins in conversation with Richard Holloway, Sir David King and Professor Peter Atkins.

(Amazing optical effects at Heriot Watt’s Cyberneering at Wonderama 2008)

If you would like to join our mailing list for 2009 please click on the link to the left. Thank you to all our partners and supporters for making the festival such a success. You can browse the 2008 events on the website. 2009 events will be announced early next year.

We established, through the mass ‘name experiment’ involving over 6,500 people by TV psychologist and professor at the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Wiseman, that James and Elizabeth are the most successful sounding names, and Lucy and Jack the luckiest. Find out more here.

Our Schools programme Generation Science continues to tour Scotland’s schools, bringing the festival’s inspirational science shows and workshops to over 66,000 pupils in their schools across Scotland this year. For more information please visit the Generation Science site.