Brain Awareness Week will take place from 16 to 20 March 2026 in Ljubljana, with parallel events also happening in Koper, Maribor, Murska Sobota, and Tolmin. You can find the full programme on our website and on our social media channels.

This year’s Brain Awareness Week theme, Fears of the Modern World, was chosen because we want to address the fears that arise in contemporary society. Today, we are no longer afraid of darkness in the forest or the cry of a predator. Our fears are quieter, more diffuse, and constantly present. They are the fear of becoming irrelevant, replaceable, or invisible. The fear that we are not fast enough for a world that never stops, and at the same time not calm enough to truly live in it. Climate change, economic uncertainty, the breakdown of trust in institutions and in words create a sense that the ground beneath our feet is no longer firm. We even carry these fears in our pockets, where only a few swipes across the cold glass of a device that increasingly controls us separate us from the news. The paradox of modern fear is that we live more safely than most generations before us, yet we feel more threatened than ever before.

Through a series of lectures, workshops, and artistic works, we want to show that fear is a part of us and that there is no need to be ashamed of it. It is proof that we care. We do not wish to eradicate fear, but to bring it closer and, in doing so, create the courage to enter a new world fearlessly. The programme will explore fear in a holistic way, from its neurobiological and physical foundations to its effects on health, as well as possibilities for pharmacological and psychological relief. Special emphasis will be placed on social anxiety, the influence of the media, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the experience of fear in children and across generations.

Because, like Marie Curie, we believe that nothing, not even fear, is to be feared, but only understood, we hope you will join us!