In this Year of Young People, young people will be very much to the fore in this year’s Festival, with two young Orcadians, Lucy Leech and Hope Laing, carrying out the opening, and a team of young people hosting all the events.
Year of Young People to boost Festival
Music from Ireland, astronomy from Uzbekistan, newly created art and design, and young people to the fore – these will all be features of this year’s Orkney International Science Festival in a special package for the Year of Young People 2018.
PROGRAMME 2017
Walking, voyaging, travelling, exploring – with stories of polar exploration and Norse navigation, building great bridges and probing the seabed – plus a return visit of Nobel laureate Prof. Peter Higgs, are all to the fore in the programme for the 2017 Orkney International Science Festival.
PROGRAMME 2016
This year’s Festival will highlight the discovery of the year – indeed one of the great scientific discoveries of all time – gravitational waves.
![Part of Gale Crater on Mars [Photo: NASA]](http://oisf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Part-of-Gale-Crater-on-Mars-540x272.jpg)
FROM ORKNEY TO SPACE: FOR SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh are joining together with staff from the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh’s visitor centre to visit several schools and give a public presentation in Kirkwall on the evening of Thursday 23 March.
LOST SHIPS, LOST LANDS, AND MIGHTY BRIDGES
The sound of the sea runs through this year’s programme, with topics ranging from ancient Norse navigation to tidal power in Ushant. We have stories of lost ships of the Spanish Armada and lost lands beneath the sea, and
FROM GRAVITATIONAL WAVES TO HERRING DAYS
The amazing discovery of gravitational waves will be to the fore in this year’s programme – along with dark matter, the Northern Lights, Antarctic exploration, dolphin communication, early humans, plus the story of the start of the herring industry.
Programme 2015
Nobel Prizewinner Peter Higgs will be one of the speakers in this year’s Festival, in conversation with a fellow physicist, Frank Close.

Year of Light to shine in Orkney Science Festival
The International Year of Light will provide one of the themes of this year’s Orkney International Science Festival – and the centenary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity will be another.
Hope’s Beautiful Daughters
A new CD bringing together Scottish and Slovenian musicians and storytellers is to be launched in Orkney on 3 September.