Reference: Original project ideas and project implementation through various collaborations

Heimspiel Wissenschaft

“Heimspiel Wissenschaft” is one of our passion projects here at con gressa. The concept was developed to promote science communication in rural areas as well, where there have been few opportunities of this kind to date.

In “Heimspiel Wissenschaft”, researchers who are originally from rural areas return to their hometowns to talk about their work. They explain what they do, why they conduct research, and why it might be of interest to others. And they do this not in a lecture hall, but at the village pub, the community center, the sports club, or another familiar location. The audience consists mostly of familiar faces from their hometowns. The great strength of “Heimspiel Wissenschaft” is that it makes research accessible through the researchers’ personal connections to the local community—on an equal footing.

Over the first 2.5 years, we were able to host more than 60 home games in collaboration with our two project partners, the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) and the Käte Hamburger College for Apocalyptic and Postapocalyptic Studies (CAPAS) at the University of Heidelberg implement. We received funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the Science Years 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Today, we also organize home games on behalf of scientific institutions: In cooperation with the Max Planck Society, numerous additional home games have been added to the Max Planck Edition since October 2025, during which scientists from Max Planck Institutes discuss their research.

Additionally,interested researchers can organize their own home games in their rural hometowns—either through their institution or on their own. Tips on how to do this are available at heimspiel-wissenschaft.de.

Further information on more knowledge in rural areas can be found here.