OGS at Trieste Next 2026

Trieste Next, the scientific research festival, returns to Piazza Unità d’Italia from September 25 to 27, 2026. Three days of meetings, workshops, and discussions to showcase research, reflect on the relationship between scientific and technological innovation and society, and envision a more sustainable tomorrow together. The theme of the festival's fifteenth edition is "The Shape of Thought. Interactions between brains and intelligences."

OGS, one of the festival's promoters, will participate in various ways: as every year, it will set up a booth in Piazza Unità in collaboration with the Miramare Marine Protected Area (AMP Miramare), featuring a schedule of educational games and activities, scientific demonstrations, and talks with scientists to discuss natural hazards, climate change, polar regions, the ocean, and biodiversity. The exhibition space will also host  Grotta Gigante, taking visitors on a journey into the depths of the Earth.

The Institute will also contribute to the festival’s conference schedule and to the initiatives of SHARPER, the European Researchers' Night, scheduled for September 25.

Below is an overview of the activities:

The booth in Piazza Unità

A wide range of activities and open talks organized by:

• Centre for Seismological Research

• Section of Geophysics

• Section of Oceanography

• Centre for Management of Maritime Infrastructures

• Bulletin of Geophysics and Oceanography

All activities will be free to access on a first-come, first-served basis.

Conferences

OGS is organizing two conferences included in the official Trieste Next program:

• Abyssal Intelligences (September 25 at 3:00 PM, Talk Area 2, Piazza Unità)

  • Speakers: Roberto Danovaro, Professor of Ecology and Marine Biology at UNIVPM, and Paola Del Negro, General Director of OGS

  • Moderator: Daniela Picoi, science communicator

    (Booking required: register for the event)

• Building Networks: The Lessons of Earthquakes (September 26 at 10:00 AM, Urban Center)

  • Speakers: Giuliana Rossi, Deputy Director of the Seismological Research Center, OGS; Daniela Di Bucci, Specialist in the Scientific and Technological Sector, Presidency of the Council of Ministers - Civil Protection Department; Carla Braitenberg, Professor of Geophysics, University of Trieste; Jurij Pahor, Seismologist, Slovenian Environment Agency (ARSO)

  • Moderator: Paolo Mosanghini, Co-director of Messaggero Veneto

    (Booking required: register for the event)

OGS at SHARPER

Ahead of the European Researchers' Night, classroom sessions return with "An Hour with the Researcher." OGS is participating in one of these events:

• Whales. Sentinels of the Sea (September 24 at 9:00 AM. Classroom meeting upon reservation; more info at this link: An Hour with the Researcher)

On Friday, September 25, OGS will combine its Trieste Next activities with those organized for SHARPER.

The following morning activities are scheduled for schools:

• Memory – Alien Species of the Mediterranean (September 25 at 9:00 AM, OGS booth in Piazza Unità)

• The Sea Band (September 25 at 10:00 AM, OGS booth in Piazza Unità)

• A Multicolor Sea (September 25 at 11:00 AM, OGS booth in Piazza Unità)

• Pelagos Sanctuary (September 25 at 12:00 PM, OGS booth in Piazza Unità)

These activities are dedicated to schools. Mandatory registration opens on September 7 via this link: school bookings.

In the afternoon, OGS offers the following events:

• Science in the Square (September 25 from 3:00 PM to 10:00 PM, Piazza Unità)

  What happens deep inside the Earth? And how can we understand and address the changes transforming our planet? Games, activities, scientific demonstrations, and meet-and-greets with OGS researchers. Free access on a first-come, first-served basis.

• Street Science (September 25 from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, Town Hall Arcades, Piazza Unità)

  An event organized by SiS FVG, where researchers from Trieste deliver short "street-style" mini-talks to share their scientific discoveries in a simple and concise way. Free access.