Visit us at Long Night of Research 2026

This year, CeMESS will participate with 8 interactive booths. The events start at 17:00 and finishes between 22:30 and 23:00. Our stations are located at the University of Vienna Main Building (1^st District) and the Vienna Biocenter (3^rd District), where CeMESS and the Faculty of Life Sciences jointly operate the UBB location. 

At the main university building, Dagmar Woebken and her team show how biological soil crusts, made of tiny microorganisms, survive extreme conditions and reveal lessons about climate resilience. Michael Zumstein and colleagues explain what makes chemicals biodegradable and where they could replace other man-made chemicals harmful for the ecosystems. 

At the University Biology Builing (UBB), six research teams from CeMESS present stations covering everything from soil to evolution. Two teams bring science to life through board games: with Nathalie Heldwein’s group, become fertilizer to discover if you can feed humanity without pollution; with Laura Sanchez Lara’s team, guide creatures through natural selection. Two teams shine a light on color: Sarah Pati’s team offers hands-on experiments to reveal the components of everyday color, while Ruizhe Pei and his colleagues use fluorescent stains to make invisible yet omnipresent microbes glow under the microscope. Two teams explore what’s beneath our feet: with Cornelia Rottensteiner’s group, discover soil microorganism through your senses in a memory game, while with Christina Straub’s team, you can examine real root nodules to learn how bacteria provide essential nitrogen to legumes.