Taking research to festivals - an overview

You can download a PDF of the guide here. The text is reproduced below.

Public Engagement with Research: Festivals & Events for Researchers to Engage the Public

• Festivals offer an excellent opportunity to engage the public with your research including those that are new to engagement, as you can focus on the content of your activity while the festival organisers look after attracting an audience and much of the logistics, such as venue hire and ticketing.
• The matrix below provides a list of the key festivals that take place in and around Oxford and includes some national festivals. Please note that calls for participation and contributions often happen well in advance of the event date – you need to check the website for more details.
• Some festivals charge a participation fee (to cover the costs of festival staff, venue hire and marketing etc.) and this, together with your activity development costs, can be included in some external grant applications such as Research Council Pathways to Impact and Wellcome Public Engagement Enrichment. There are also internal grant schemes you can apply to or you may be able to secure funds from your department. Some festivals also offer the opportunity to apply for small grants to develop your activity.

This resource was collated in October 2018 by the Public Engagement with Research Team in Research Services, University of Oxford - publicengagement@admin.ox.ac.uk

See further information about engagement opportunities.

You can download guidance on planning public engagement as part of a Pathway to Impact, or view the Pathways to Impact guidance as a webpage.

If you would like support in developing your public engagement plans you can arrange a meeting with Public Engagement Facilitator, Michaela Livingstone-Banks, by emailing michaela.livingstone@mpls.ox.ac.uk.