Quantum Science at European Researchers’ Night: From the First Booth to the Quantum Zone

The team behind QUTE.sk has been engaging the public with quantum physics at European Researchers’ Night since 2017 through lectures, experiments, competitions and workshops. A major milestone came in 2025, when we joined forces with our partners to create an extensive Quantum Zone in celebration of UNESCO’s International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. In 2026, as European Researchers’ Night in Slovakia celebrated its 20th anniversary, we continued this tradition and welcomed a new partner: the Faculty of Management Science and Informatics at the University of Žilina (FRI UNIZA). European Researchers’ Night has brought together scientists, students and the wider public for two decades. Its aim is to show that science need not be inaccessible or difficult to understand, but can open up a world of fascinating questions, discoveries and practical applications. For Slovakia’s scientific community, the event provides an important opportunity to introduce the public to its research and the technologies that emerge from it. Although QUTE.sk – the National Center for Quantum Technologies – was established only in 2021, the researchers and teams that now form its foundation had already been participating in European Researchers’ Night for several years. Since 2017, we have been presenting quantum phenomena and…