· What is sleep, why do we need it and how much of it do we really require?

Researchers from the universities of Oxford and Munich have called on the British public to contribute to an international survey looking at the quantity – and quality – of sleep amongst the population.

Professor Russell Foster, Chair of The Times Cheltenham Science Festival, and Professor Dr Till Roenneberg from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, who are both experts in chronobiology – the study of the circadian rhythms which govern our waking and sleeping patterns, and their interaction with daylight – will discuss the responses to the survey at the Festival in June 2012. The pair will discuss the regenerative powers of sleep as well as comparing and contrasting the sleep patterns of the UK respondents with their continental counterparts.

The survey takes just a few minutes to complete online, and asks questions relating to work schedule, differing sleep habits during the week and at the weekend, consumption of alcoholic and caffeinated drinks, exposure to cigarettes and the time taken to fall asleep each night.

So far, more than 65,000 people in Germany have taken Professor Dr Roenneberg’s simple online survey relating their sleeping habits, and the scientists are keen to capture more data relating to the British population.

Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at Brasenose College, Oxford, and Chair of The Times Cheltenham Science Festival said, “We felt that the arrival of British Summer Time, with its lighter mornings and longer evenings – plus people perhaps feeling like they’ve ‘lost’ an hour’s sleep – was an excellent moment to get people thinking about the quality and quantity of sleep they get.

“With the help of this questionnaire, we aim to understand the underlying complexity of the biological clock by gathering a picture of everyday behaviour. We all know that individuals show distinct preferences for various activities over the course of a day. A simple example is the time at which an individual prefers to go to bed and get up. Collecting this information will help us understand how and why the biological clock ticks.”

Each participant will receive a personal profile which evaluates their chronotype, and compares their results to those of other participants. A person’s chronotype relates to their preference for mornings or evenings – those who are at their best at the crack of dawn are often described as ‘larks’, whereas people who brighten up in the evenings are known as ‘owls’.

Professor Dr Till Roenneberg, of the Munich Centre of Chronobiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, adds, “It will be particularly interesting to gather more information on British sleep patterns in order to compare chronotypes of people living in different geographical locations.

“This will enable us to consider factors such as longitude and latitude, which can make a difference to the amount of daylight to which people are exposed.”

People are encouraged to take the survey online.

Professor Russell Foster will be talking about the regenerative power of sleep at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival on Tuesday 12 June 2012 at 6:30pm.

Priority booking is open to Cheltenham Festivals Members from Monday 26th March, ahead of public booking from 2nd April. The full programme is available at www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science