Immerse yourself in the world of science at the Children's and Youth Universities 2024

Once again this year, the children's universities sponsored by the BMBWF offer a wide range of opportunities to get to know research institutions and experience science at first hand.

The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) is funding a total of 23 children's and youth universities with a total of around 1.4 million euros in 2024. These invite curious young researchers to take part in lectures, seminars, excursions or workshops and thus promote an early understanding of and interest in science and research. The programmes are open to children and young people of all ages up to A-levels.
Martin Polaschek, Federal Minister of Education, Science and Research, is delighted with the great popularity of the children's universities: "The BMBWF has been supporting children's and youth universities in Austria for 20 years now. Since then, the number of participants has grown continuously. This year we expect around 40,000 children and young people to take part. It is pleasing to see that the offerings are becoming more and more diverse and, in addition to urban centres, also serve rural areas or take place online. The low-threshold nature of the programmes means that they are aimed at children and young people from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. In the spirit of our "DNAustria" initiative, which I presented in February, we are bringing science before the curtain, awakening children's interest in scientific issues at an early age and thus strengthening their confidence in science and democracy.
The range of topics at the children's and youth universities is broad. It ranges from climate protection, media, digitalisation, medicine and technology to social sciences, humanities and art. In addition to the larger university cities of Vienna, Graz, Linz or Innsbruck, children's universities also take place in more rural areas, e.g. in Almtal (Upper Austria), Dölsach (T), Hollabrunn (Lower Austria), Kapfenberg (Styria), Klostertal (Vorarlberg) or Raabs an der Thaya (Lower Austria). Those who cannot or do not wish to participate on site can take advantage of the online programmes offered, for example, by the Vienna Children's University, the IMC FH Krems, the KinderUniGraz, the KinderuniKunst or the Institute of Science and Technology.
In addition to the children's and youth universities, which mostly offer selective courses in the form of individual events, there will also be full-week holiday care programmes with a scientific focus in 2024. In addition to science content, these will also include phases for play and exercise. These extension modules offer an eventful programme that combines holidays with science education and research-based learning. In contrast to many children's and youth universities, which also offer courses during the year, the holiday care programme only takes place during the summer months.
OeAD Managing Director Jakob Calice is delighted with the large number of high-quality projects that will be funded in 2024: "It's great to see that more and more Austrian universities and research institutions are opening their doors to children and young people and that we have funding opportunities for projects that are unrivalled internationally. The steady increase in available federal funding is also evidence of this. This year alone, the amount of funding has been increased by more than 200,000 euros compared to the previous year. The OeAD is proud to have been managing this important funding programme on behalf of the BMBWF since 2021 and this year, for the first time, we were also able to award funding for the children's universities with a Lower Austrian connection, which is provided by the state of Lower Austria. This is a unique cooperation that offers considerable organisational relief, especially for applicants."
Stephan Pernkopf, Deputy Governor of Lower Austria, is responsible for science and research. He emphasises: "The Children's and Youth Universities are a door opener for young scientists. During the summer holidays, the participants have the opportunity to come into direct contact with cutting-edge research in scientific institutions and create important points of contact with the latest topics. We see the exciting, high-quality and age-appropriate communication of scientific topics as an enormously important anchor in raising young people's awareness. I am therefore all the more pleased that seven projects with programmes in Lower Austria will receive additional funding of up to 15,000 euros each this year."
All children's and youth universities funded in 2024 can be found on the OeAD website at this link: https://youngscience.at/de/angebote/kinder-und-jugenduniversitaeten/projekte