FAQ

What does it mean that the conference has a new type of conference structure? What about the debates?

Debaters are the main part of the new conference concept, because conferences should not have an audience: Concerts have an audience because artists perform something special there, which the audience marvels at without participating themselves. In conferences, however, every participant should contribute very actively to the conference and its outcome. So we have hardly any speakers (only 9 leading researchers, each presenting their ground-breaking discoveries for only 30 minutes) and all other time is for debates in which everyone present actively participates, both verbally and digitally via votes, statements, questions and criticism.

It is a new conference experience, because instead of dozens of presentations in a row, as is usual in conferences, which tend to turn conference participants into a passive audience, Eureka turns everything on its head - with debates. The focus is on you and all the other participants, on sharing ideas. There is a question and answer session after each presentation, a plenary discussion with the speakers of the day and a big debate in which the biggest controversial issues of the day are discussed together. What do we decide together? At the end, we record the results of the votes and publish them.

I am used to attending conferences only as a speaker. Can I also take part here as a speaker?

We have deliberately chosen only 9 ‘speakers’. These are scientists who share their personal and life-changing Eureka moments from research in a very short (30min) format. This is because our conference focusses on interactive exchange between all participants, which is why instead of many presentations, the focus is on debates in which everyone is encouraged to participate. That's why we don't have participants, but rather everyone is a so-called debater.