‘I’ve sailed onst with an Orkney man,
A deal o’ years ago,’ said Dan,
‘In Clay’s old packet, Kubla Khan.’
– Cicely Fox Smith

Curiosity has a way of gathering people and once again, it’s gathering us northward. The Orkney International Science Festival 2026 is opening its doors to fresh voices, bold ideas, and creative ways of exploring our world. Whether you’re uncovering science about archaeology, shaping conversations about climate, or weaving stories that connect Orkney to other parts of the world, and so much more, we’d love to hear from you. Propose a talk, workshop, exhibition, or performance by 23

Spring garden workshops on the way A series of vegetable garden workshops is about to take place in Orkney. Moray gardener Ed Bollom is coming north to visit garden groups in Westray, North Ronaldsay and Stromness ahead of the growing season, with much practical advice. His aim is to encourage greater self-sufficiency in growing your own vegetables, and the workshops cover everything from planning your plot, choosing suitable vegetable varieties and nurturing your crops, to composting,

Westray and Evie schools are the winners of the 2022 Blyth Challenge. The Challenge, named after Scottish 19th-century wind energy pioneer James Blyth, set a target for schools: to design and build a model wind turbine; or alternatively to produce a research portfolio on wind power. It was run by Dave Craig from SCDI Young Engineers and Science Clubs Scotland in collaboration with Orkney Renewable Energy Forum who provided the prizes. Generous sponsorship by some of the island

New insights into the origins of bere in Orkney fields, and of potatoes on a high Bolivian plateau. Ship design for Neolithic seas and for polar icy waters today. Orkney genes and patterns of human disease. A new field of engineering with the single remit: find a path to the future. These are some of the elements of the programme for this year’s Orkney International Science Festival, announced today. The 100+ events include a candlelight lecture, papermaking

A tune specially written by one of Orkney’s best-known fiddle players for a Science Festival Slovenian anniversary has won a national music award.

Orkney International Science Festival director Howie Firth reflects on seven action-packed days of the 2021 festival – from views of coasts shaped by wave and storm to concerts of music inspired by the stars.

The programme is launching! The sea runs through the Orkney International Science Festival programme in this Year of Coasts and Waters in Scotland, as director Howie Firth explains. From the physics of wind power for tall ships to new developments in offshore wind and tidal turbines, past and present come together in an island setting, with astronomy and archaeology and much else featured in a week of over 80 events, just about all of

Orkney International Science Festival is looking for an Assistant Director. It’s a short-term post to the end of September, with the potential for continuation and development of the role into 2022 and beyond.

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Orkney International Science Festival is being given a new format for this September. We’re responding to the challenge by joining the growing pattern of home delivery, to bring the entire Festival to everyone who would like to access it, wherever they are.

Prof. Tom Stevenson to open 30th Festival This year’s Orkney International Science Festival will be opened by Prof. Tom Stevenson. He has the unique distinction of having spoken in every Science Festival since the first one in 1991, developing lecture/demonstrations on topics from superconductivity and energy technology to early radio at sea. With him at the first Festival was a colleague from Edinburgh University, Dr David Renshaw, who demonstrated a new development – his

2020 will be the Year of Coasts and Waters in Scotland and we will have various topics about the sea and islands. We will look at the story of boat-building, and highlight new ideas about how the people of the Neolithic may have built the ships that linked Orkney to other parts of the ancient world, 5000 years ago.

Festival will commemorate Moon landing Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary will be commemorated in Orkney in September with a programme of talks on space and astronomy in the islands’ annual science festival.

Orkney International Science Festival this year will have an added outdoor dimension as it joins forces with a new Foraging Fortnight being established in Scotland.

There’s an outdoor strand in this year’s programme, going from pole to pole, with Central Asia also to the fore.

It’s fresh, it’s nutritious, and it’s free! The benefits of foraging is becoming realised, doing what generations of people have done for thousands, indeed millions, of years – finding food in the wild.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 underwater photographs from Scapa Flow and the Arctic. There will be insights on traditional boatbuilding and modern bridge construction, including the new Queensferry Crossing. We will hear of the quest for new products from bacteria and for the

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. There are stories of searching into the past – probing beneath the sea bed and the soil around Stonehenge for clues to ancient societies. There are stories of courage in the face of some of the worst weather

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.

What makes the Clipperton Project’s Floating Laboratory special is the mix of people aboard – scientists, artists, photographers and people promoting the spirit of exploration in tackling the challenges of today’s world.

Prof. Steve ‘Jake’ Jacobs has written and presented a series for the Discovery Channel, and also for National Geographic TV and Fox Television where he was the creator and on-air host of the series Jake’s Attic.

The 2013 Festival had record attendances, with over 200 people at some events. The Family Day was the biggest yet, packed with activities, from marine life to Europe’s Lost World.

Recognise Rae: call for stamp to honour Arctic hero A call is being made for a stamp to be issued to honour one of the greatest Arctic explorers of all time. Orcadian John Rae, born 200 years ago, solved the two greatest mysteries of 19th-century Arctic exploration. He found the vital link for a Northwest Passage and he discovered the fate of the Franklin expedition. John Rae led a series of searches for Franklin and his men,

A radical new approach to cancer is to be announced in London tomorrow (Wednesday 5 June), in a lecture hosted by the magazine New Scientist.

A radical vision for Orkney’s future has been unveiled. It looks to the potential of two areas of development – marine renewables and a container port in Scapa Flow.

Win a night-sky photo in our new astronomy competition! Would you like a night-sky image on your wall, taken by the observatory above? Take part in our new astronomy competition! The La Silla Observatory in Chile is part of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the world’s most most productive ground-based astronomical observatory. Supported by 15 member states, ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities, enabling astronomers to make important

Filmmaker and film from lost city to open this year’s festival One of Britain’s leading documentary filmmakers is to open this year’s Orkney International Science Festival – bringing with him a remarkable new film in which people from a lost city in South America open up a dialogue with western scientists. Alan Ereira worked at the BBC from 1965 onwards, contributing documentaries to series such as Timewatch, and went on to collaborate with Terry

Archibald Edmiston Roy was born in Yoker, Glasgow, on 24 June 1924. His father was a draftsman at John Brown’s shipyard, and he himself originally wanted to be an architect.

Our first Honorary Life Member, Thora Bain, died on 22 September, at the age of 95. Thora was one of the greats - a mine of information on Orkney, with a keen interest in opening up questions about its history, and so many memories of people and events. Her obituary in The Scotsman summed up many features of her life. She will be remembered with warmest thoughts by many people in Orkney and elsewhere.

Record-breaking week All records were broken for audience numbers in this year's Festival, when ended on Wednesday 12 September. Many events were completely sold out. Whether it was 10 in the morning or 9 at night, halls - and often large ones - were filled to overflowing. Visitors came from many places, with a number travelling from long distances just to be there and enjoy it. They came from Edinburgh and Newcastle, Glasgow and Wrexham, Canada

Doggerland You can get glimpses of a lost world that vanished under the waves more than 8,000 years ago at the Family Day. Much of the area covered today by the North Sea was once dry land. This was when the Ice Age was at its coldest, and much water was locked up in the massive glaciers that covered much of northern Europe, including Scotland. The eventual melting of the ice led to a huge outpouring of

A big battery breakthrough is under way which could provide a big boost for renewables. The world’s biggest and fastest battery has been switched on in Texas.

A courtroom format in Orkney this week will tackle the question of climate change.

One of the world’s leading tree ring experts is coming to this year's Orkney Science Festival to outline evidence for catastrophes in ancient times.

Orkney clues to Pandora's secrets? A hunt is on for Orcadian links to the warship Pandora, wrecked off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef more than two centuries ago. The investigation brings in archaeology, history, genealogy and forensic science.The Pandora was sent to the South Pacific in pursuit of the Bounty mutineers, and there were 14 of them aboard when she went down in August 1791. One, who died in the wreck, was George Stewart from Stromness, believed to have

Jane Goodall to open 2012 Festival One of the world’s leading figures in conservation is to open this year’s Orkney International Science Festival. Jane Goodall is internationally known for her ongoing study of chimpanzees in Tanzania that has spanned more than 50 years. In the 1960s she discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools, thereby forcing the scientific world to rethink the definition of humans as unique in making tools. At the start she worked on her

Bees can count, read symbols and solve problems that would perplex some of the smartest mammals. Some have an eye for art appreciation, having been trained to pick either Monet or Picasso’s paintings from a choice of the artists’ work...

A new European creative centre  has opened, bringing culture and space together in a striking synthesis. The new building is distinctive in design and location – its location is not in a big urban setting but in a village in Slovenia.

What could arguably be the most scientific language in the world is spoken by a group of around 300 people in a remote river system in Brazil’s Amazon Basin.

It has produced some of the world’s most beautiful engines – and its clean and energy-efficient qualities may now bring it to the fore again. A highlight of the 2010 Festival was an evening on the comeback of steam, followed by the sight of a vintage steam engine in a green fuel mode.

Orkney had a midwinter astronomy festival in December 2011. Talks and stargazing took place across the mainland from Birsay to Deerness, and in Stronsay and Sanday as well.

See Orkney skies on the iPad! To promote the 'Dark Skies Orkney' event of December 2011 and Orkney astronomy generally, a new e-magazine was produced for iPad and web access.It includes a feature on astronomy in Orkney with auroral photographs taken by John Vetterlein in Rousay and night sky images from Michael Sinclair in Kirkwall. John and Michael are the co-founders of the new Orkney Astronomical Society.Also in the magazine you can find an interview by Amy Liptrot with