This performance is a small study. Its object is the scientific society and its relationship with the general society. But it is not a sociological study, it’s a performance, an artistic study. The ones that lead the study are, at the same time, its object. It has been this group of researchers who build from scratch, this performance. The perspective with which science is seen is, therefore, that of scientists and not of someone outside the science world. It is an inside look to the inside and an inside out look.

The publication of results takes place on a stage and not in a scientific paper. This is the challenge the researchers bravely chose to face: talk about themselves through a means they don’t master. But that’s a typical characteristic of a good scientific researcher – to like challenges. In Flies are Rats that Fly we analyse relationships between scientific colleagues, we evaluate the hierarchical chain in a research centre, we study its interaction with society during school visits, we investigate the relationships of researchers with their families and friends, we compare different approaches to science both in Portugal and abroad, we discuss individual and group values – all this under the close observation of the omnipresent characters in a blue lab coat which permanently accompany the life that pulsates in a research lab.