In the age of algorithms, information no longer moves in straight lines from source to reader; it lurches, multiplies, and mutates as it travels through feeds, shares, and recommendations. Falsehoods can spread like a virus, and the louder they echo, the more familiar they feel. In such a landscape, the university cannot afford to be an ivory tower, patiently waiting to be consulted. It must meet people where they are, and it must earn the right to be heard in the crowded, noisy spaces of public discourse. This conviction shaped the second edition of the InterCOCEN Fair, organized by Unicamp on September 19th and 20th at the Events Center of the Municipal Education Secretariat in Campinas. The fair was designed as an act of deliberate, hands-on dialogue: researchers left their laboratories and offices and spent two days surrounded by curious visitors of all ages, answering questions, showing experiments, and listening as much as explaining. Raluca Savu, coordinator of Unicamp’s Coordination of Interdisciplinary Research Centers and Nuclei, framed the event as a necessary change in the relationship between science and society. “When children, young people, and adults who don’t have a daily experience of university life can talk directly with researchers, ask questions, and experiment, science begins to spark more interest,” she said. “This is the kind of interaction we want to strengthen with InterCOCEN.” The words reflect a quiet but powerful shift: from broadcasting knowledge to building trust, from authority to curiosity, from the university as an institution to the university as a community of fellow seekers.
For two days, the fair was a living laboratory in the most literal sense. Hundreds of visitors passed through the space, some simply wandering in from the street and others arriving on school buses organized by teachers eager to show their students what science can be. According to the Population Studies Center at Unicamp, the fair attracted groups from thirty-five cities in the region, a sign of how much hunger exists for meaningful contact with research. The visitors encountered a carefully designed mix of playful workshops, exhibitions, interactive demonstrations, artistic performances, and open conversations with experts. Climate change, nanotechnology, nutrition, biodiversity, and other pressing topics were presented not as abstract concepts but as tangible, human questions. Children could ask a researcher why ice melts differently, or how a sensor can detect pollution in the water; older visitors could discuss the ethics of genetic research or the politics of environmental policy. In every corner, the boundary between expert and learner became softer, more porous. Savu explained that the event was never intended to be a one-way transfer of information. “Besides planting seeds for future researchers,” she said, “our ultimate goal is to increasingly foster a scientific culture and strengthen society’s support for the university.” That support, she stressed, is not automatic; it is built through repeated, genuine encounters. It happens when a young person sees a scientist as someone approachable, when a grandmother shares her own observations about soil or seeds, when a teenager realizes that a lab is not a mysterious temple but a place where questions are asked out loud. In these small interactions, science becomes less remote and more relevant, less intimidating and more alive.
This mission acquires particular urgency in today’s media environment, where denialist discourses travel faster than ever before and social media amplifies emotion at the expense of evidence. The fair responded by inviting a guest who has spent years navigating that environment with clarity and patience: Átila Iamarino, a biologist, science communicator, and one of the most influential voices in Brazilian digital science media. On Sunday, Iamarino gave a lecture on how to stay informed in times of misinformation, a talk that quickly became one of the highlights of the program. He did not offer simple formulas or dismiss people’s confusion. Instead, he spoke about the need to recognize reliable sources, to ask good questions, and to understand that misinformation often feels emotionally satisfying because it provides quick and comforting answers. His presence was intentional, as Savu explained: “The idea of inviting Átila, who has one of the largest digital channels for science communication in the country, to talk about misinformation, was precisely in this context of opening new avenues for conversation, especially with a younger audience.” Iamarino’s approach reflects a broader vision of science communication: not lecturing at people, but meeting them inside their own digital ecosystems and inviting them to think alongside experts. Before his lecture, he wandered through the fair’s booths with the undisguised pleasure of someone who simply loves discovery. He described himself as a “chronically curious person,” and that curiosity proved contagious. At each exhibit, he found threads connecting different fields of knowledge. “Although they are distinct areas,” he commented, “in each space it is possible to raise issues that interact with each other, because, in some way, the subjects overlap.” Science communication, in his view, is never a monologue. It is a web of conversations, and the fair provided the perfect architecture for those conversations to take root.
The InterCOCEN Fair does not exist in isolation. Savu took care to explain how it complements another important Unicamp tradition: the Unicamp Open Doors, or UPA, which held its twenty-first edition this year. The two events have distinct but complementary purposes, and together they offer a fuller picture of what a public university can and should be. “UPA presents Unicamp in a broad way, allowing visitors to learn about its courses, units, laboratories, and different dimensions of university life,” Savu said. “Our fair, on the other hand, starts from a more specific perspective, showing how research from different areas interact with each other through interdisciplinarity and impact our daily lives by solving concrete problems.” If UPA is like a welcoming front door that opens onto the entire campus, InterCOCEN is more like a window into the research itself, especially the collaborative work that happens across disciplinary boundaries. That distinction matters because real-world problems rarely arrive neatly labeled by department. Climate change, for example, cannot be solved by climate scientists alone; it requires engineers, sociologists, health specialists, economists, and artists. The fair made that point visible. A visitor might move from a booth about semiconductor technology to a booth about nutrition and suddenly notice that both projects were trying to answer different pieces of the same puzzle about human wellbeing. This interdisciplinary perspective is one of Unicamp’s greatest strengths, and the fair serves as a stage for it, showing that science is not a collection of silos but a landscape of overlapping questions. For young visitors, this can be profoundly liberating. It suggests that they do not have to choose between loving biology and loving design, or between curiosity about the human body and curiosity about computers. The future belongs to those who can connect, and the fair delivered that message with warmth and enthusiasm.
One project that captured the interdisciplinary spirit of the fair was Peles-em-Chip, a bold initiative involving three of Cocen’s research centers: the Center for Biomedical Engineering, the Center for Semiconductor Components and Nanotechnologies, and the Center for Afro-Brazilian Studies, in partnership with the Institute of Biology. The project aims to develop three-dimensional skin models with different pigmentations, so that melanoma studies become more representative of Brazil’s diverse population. This is not a small detail. Historically, many biomedical models have been built around a narrow set of characteristics, which means that treatments and diagnostic tools often work better for some populations than for others. Peles-em-Chip tries to correct that asymmetry by designing skin models that reflect the people it is meant to help. The project recently received the L’Oréal Dermatology + Inclusive Prize, a recognition of its pioneering approach. But for the researchers involved, the fair offered a different kind of reward: the chance to share not just results, but the experience of doing science. Bruna de Melo, a researcher at the Center for Biomedical Engineering and one of the coordinators of the project, described the encounter with evident joy. “The audience was very diverse, with families, children, the elderly, and elementary and high school students,” she said. “We were happy with the interest: people asked many questions, participated in our games, and had the opportunity to see the bioprinters in operation and the organ-on-a-chip devices, technologies that we use to build our platform.” For her, the fair was an opportunity to present the daily life of a laboratory, including the mess, the patience, and the small moments of breakthrough that are often hidden from public view. That transparency matters. When people see how research is actually made, they are less likely to fall for myths, and more likely to understand why science deserves patience and public investment. The bioprinters in action, the tiny devices where cells are cultivated, the careful hands of researchers adjusting a sample—these images remain in the memory long after a fact sheet would have been forgotten.
In the end, the most lasting message of the InterCOCEN Fair may have come from Átila Iamarino himself, in a quiet moment before his lecture. After walking through the exhibits, meeting researchers, and observing families engaged in conversation around booths, he reflected on what makes a university truly durable. “This type of fair is what keeps the university going, not the other way around,” he stated. The phrase is surprising but profound. At a time when public support for universities is scrutinized, when budgets are cut and demands for immediate relevance are loud, it can be easy to forget that a university’s legitimacy is not guaranteed by its diplomas or its patents. It is renewed every time a child asks a question, every time a parent sees a scientist as someone who can be trusted, every time a citizen feels that knowledge belongs to everyone. Iamarino also noted that research from the last fifteen years consistently shows high levels of interest in science and technology among children and young people. The natural curiosity is already there. The challenge, he said, is to preserve it throughout years of schooling, to protect it against the pressure to perform, and to nourish it with playful experiences, family participation, and intergenerational dialogue. “The role of play, the role of bringing families together, the role of intergenerational conversation is precisely to maintain this interest,” he said. The fair embodied those values beautifully. It was not a vast academic congress or a polished publicity campaign; it was a meeting place, a space where the joy of discovery could be shared across generations. In an age dominated by algorithms, where digital platforms often isolate us in echo chambers, events like InterCOCEN serve as a reminder that science communication is ultimately about relationships. It is about the eye contact between a researcher and a teenager, the shared laugh at a failed experiment, the moment of wonder when a new idea clicks into place. That is how a scientific culture is born, and that is how a university earns its place in society, not as a fortress of experts but as a living, breathing community built on trust.