IUI: Night Science: Unlocking Scientific Creativity and Innovation
The Night Science Workshop on the Creative Process
click here for the event poster
Science moves between two modes: Day Science, the rigorous testing of ideas, and Night Science, the creative process where those ideas first emerge.
Join Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher for two ‘Day Science’ seminars on their latest research, offering insight into how scientific ideas are explored, tested, and refined in practice.
But where do these ideas come from in the first place?
What we call the scientific method tells us what to do once we have a hypothesis – but where do these hypotheses come from in the first place? François Jacob famously called this part the realm of ‘Night Science’. Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher developed a workshop that teaches the dichotomy of the scientific process, which consists of both Day Science, the rigorous testing of ideas with empirical data, and Night Science, the creative scientific process. The workshop then introduces the thinking tools of the creative scientific process, which include improvisational discussions, interdisciplinarity, metaphorical language, questions from contradictions, puzzle-switching, and a general attitude of openness toward new ideas.
Date: 11 & 12 May 2026
Start: 11 May 13h00 Aula ON 5 Campus Gasthuisberg
12 May 2026: Leuven City Center
For more information: https://night-science.org/home/learn/
Contact info: Carolina<dot>ruivo<at>kuleuven<dot>be
ONZE UNIVERSITEITEN
