Case study: Festival Fun for All

Festivals offer a first step to engagement, new ways to connect with audiences and opportunities to try out innovative ideas

Project Lead

The FUTURES Consortium, 2018-2023

Aim and Approach

Festivals are a valuable opportunity for publicly showcasing university research. ‘In-house’ organisation allows a much greater level of curation, promotion, quality control and support than external events.

Since 2018 the Public Engagement team at the University of Bristol has led on FUTURES, an annual two-day Festival of Discovery taking place across the South-West of England. Events are open to researchers from all disciplines and attract large, diverse audiences.

Practical Details

FUTURES was funded by a European Commission European Researchers Night grant between 2018 & 2021 and by UKRI since. Approx. £200K/year covers staffing, project management, awareness-raising & evaluation costs, plus training and resources for researchers.

Key Partnerships

The FUTURES Consortium includes the Universities of Bath, Exeter, Plymouth & Bath Spa. We work closely with a range of key cultural partners like the SS Great Britain, Natural History Consortium, We The Curious & the Holburne Museum

Activity and Outcomes

To date, more than 700 researchers from Bristol & the South-West have taken part in FUTURES Festivals, directly sharing their research with over 55,000 children, young people and adults from all kinds of backgrounds.

Activities have increased audiences’ understanding of a wide variety of research topics, what researchers do, and how research benefits society & helps tackle future challenges.

FUTURES comprises a huge range of high-quality events hosted at well-known venues and online, including talks, research fairs, workshops, exhibitions, comedy, radio, storytelling, walking tours, theatre collaborations, science busking, social media takeovers, schools’ sessions and many more.

Such varied activities provide supported opportunities for any researcher to engage, regardless of their level of experience. The programme also offers space for innovative or creative engagement which leads to genuine dialogue and interaction with communities.

Support

The Public Engagement team leads the consortium: securing funding; facilitating collaboration; advising on evaluation; taking responsibility for overall project management and reporting.

We curate, promote, deliver & evaluate Bristol’s events and provide advice, individual support and a range of training for participating researchers.

Impact

Evaluation shows that attendees enjoy their experiences and better appreciate the relevance of research to their own lives. Young people especially are inspired to be more curious about our world and to consider research as a career. ‌

Researchers develop their communication and digital skills, enjoy sharing their enthusiasm for research, and discover new ways of engaging with the public. As one researcher said in 2020:

“It was great to connect with audiences that we may not ordinarily have the opportunity to meet, aided by the promotion available through a bigger, recognised project.”.