• The selected stories will be presented in hospitals, nursing homes and migrant reception centers and will be published in a book.
  • The subject has to address some scientific aspect related to the Mediterranean.
  • Registration is open until August 15th.

The Didactic and Interactive Museum of Sciences of the Vega Baja del Segura of the Valencia Community, MUDIC, organizes the fourth international contest “Tales from MEDNIGHT”, on stories of the Mediterranean Sea.

“Tales from Mednight” is a literary contest whose purpose is to bring science through literary works and their theatrical representation to different sectors of society, especially girls and boys. The registration period is open until August 15th. It is an open competition, especially aimed at teachers, researchers, students, journalists and writers. The minimum words allowed shall be 350 and the maximum shall be 1500. The selected stories will be published in digital and printed version, the ISBN will be managed and a printed copy will be sent as a prize to the winners. MEDNIGHT also offers training to become a short story writer/writer, an online course on how to write a science story.

The works can be presented electronically, using the form available on the website of the Mediterranean Researchers’ Night (MEDNIGHT). Contest rules here (web link).

The tales from the MEDNIGHT is an inclusive activity of the Mediterranean Researchers` Night. This is the fourth literary contest of scientific stories related to the Mediterranean. The subjects proposed are: Health; Mediterranean Sea; anthropology and history; pollution; biodiversity; women and science; climate emergency; geology; engineering; diet and nutrition; clean energies; astronomy and any scientific or technological subject, provided it is linked to the Mediterranean countries.

The aim is to bring Mediterranean Science closer to sectors of the population which are often remote from outreach activities. Thus, the winning works will be presented in a fun and entertaining way to hospitalized children, migrants in reception centers, and elderly people in residences. They may also be represented during astronomical observation activities. This edition differentiates between children and youth category.

In the III edition, there were 11 winning works within a wide range of scientific themes that have been represented in refugee camps, hospitals and senior centers. The works were published in print and digital form, and have been translated in this third case into English, Italian and Greek, their rights being under the Creative Commons license.

You can download Tales from Mednight 2023 here for free.

The book also includes illustrations commissioned by Mednight for the winning stories and includes the easy-to-read pictogram version of one of the works, as well as the audiobook version of all of them.

MEDNIGHT is a Mediterranean scientific dissemination project that connects knowledge centers at both ends of the Mediterranean Sea and brings together the participation in a consortium of 13 institutions: MUDIC, El Caleidoscopio, CIEMAT, SciCo Cyprus, SciCo Greece, Kadir Has University of Istanbul, the European Association of Women Rectors (EWORA), Genopolys, Monastir Science Palace, the University Hospital Center of Tolouse, Athena R&I IT and the Marie Curie Alumni Association under the coordination of the University of Messina.

MEDNIGHT is held within the framework of the European Researchers’ Night, a scientific dissemination project promoted and funded by the European Commission as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions (grant agreement no. 101162227) of the program Horizon Europe.