Long Night of Sciences – Dahlem Research Campus

The smartest night of the year

What happens when Berlin's research institutions put aside their gatekeepers and PR strategies for one night and simply open their doors? The Long Night of Sciences has been answering this question annually since 2001: Over 60 universities, Max Planck Institutes, Helmholtz Centers, and research museums in Berlin and Potsdam invite you to the 'smartest night of the year' in the summer. Over 1,000 program items city-wide, and in Dahlem alone, a dense program at several locations – from zoology to mathematics education.

Dahlem Cluster – Berlin's scientific heart

The Dahlem Research Campus is located in the southwestern Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough, nestled between the Botanical Garden, Grunewald forest, and Lake Wannsee. Numerous institutes of Freie Universität Berlin are concentrated here, as well as the branches of the State Museums of Berlin: the Ethnological Museum with its world-renowned non-European collections and the Museum of European Cultures (MEK), which tells the everyday history of Europe. Max Planck Institutes, the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, and the Federal Institute for Materials Research are also within reach.

Hands-on program

The concept is deliberately accessible: it's not about frontal lectures, but about participation. Parents stand with their children at microscopes, teenagers program robots, students lead tours through their laboratories. Classics include observatory observations, show lectures in chemistry and physics (often with small explosions), robotics competitions in computer science – and in Dahlem, the late-night sessions at the MEK and the Ethnological Museum with special tours.

The Berlin-Brandenburg Ticket

A single admission ticket grants access to all locations – in Dahlem, Mitte, Adlershof, Buch, Wedding, Charlottenburg, and Potsdam. Shuttle buses run between the main hubs, and the Berlin public transport services increase their night offerings. Experience shows that it's worthwhile to pick two or three locations beforehand – no one can see the whole city in one night.