Manchester Science Festival bringing STEM subjects to life
Manchester Science Festival is an annual nine-‐day, multi-‐venue festival run over the October half-‐term holiday. It is Manchester’s premier event for public engagement with science and engineering, promoting the region’s rich heritage of past scientific achievements and endeavours whilst showcasing current innovative science, technology and engineering research and practice. The programme includes a wide range of activities and events, including workshops, exhibitions, films, talks, tours, and more, and takes place in venues across Manchester city centre, utilising unexpected public places and other cultural and science venues across the city and Greater Manchester. There is also a programme for schools which takes place prior to the Festival. The Science Festival is the outcome of a partnership group initiated by MOSI, who act as administrator and banker to the group. The group comprises public and private organisations and agencies (also including Manchester Museum) interested in encouraging children, young people and the public to increase their awareness and interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects. The Festival structure includes a strategic and advocacy Steering Group; an operational / advisory Partners Group; and a specialist Education Group. The Festival is staffed by a Director, temporary administrator, and seasonal volunteers. All other staffing support comes in-‐kind from the partners. The Festival enables MOSI to deliver its regional remit by working across the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester. The Festival Director works closely with other regional strategic initiatives, also accommodated within MOSI (wholly or partly) including the Stempoint NW programme and Manchester Beacon for Public Engagement’s Community Officer. Together these initiatives collaborate particularly on community, education and workforce development activity. The Manchester Science Festival is a strong example of an effective partnership at work. The partnership and wealth of contributions relies on excellent networking, relationships and good will. There are no minimum criteria – a wide range of partners commit what they can according to their circumstances and strategies, amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds of in-‐kind support. The Festival extends an open invitation for other organisations, not on the Partners Group, to programme activity under the Festival branding. In return the Festival co-‐ordinates an overarching marketing and PR campaign, seeks funding, creates bespoke strategic and creative programming, offers a volunteers programme. Collectively the partners and the Festival create a critical mass of interest and engagement that none could have achieved alone. Other key elements worth considering though perhaps harder to replicate include the involvement of private sector partners. If the Festival is to be successful in its aim to “inspire and inform the innovative future workforce” those industries need to help shape the Festival and influence partners and audiences alike. The Festival acts as a platform for partners to develop and test new ideas, which can attract additional funding. It also offers support in developing a higher quality of programme through equipment loans, toolkits, training and evaluation. Cohesive branding and Festival themes ensure the broad spread of activity culminates in a unified programme. Another feature hard to replicate but invaluable, was to identify some of the strategies the Festival could help its partners deliver, in order to help partners create and advocate for continued or deeper commitment. This supports the continuation and growth of in-‐kind support, and enables the Festival seek funding, and draw down on complimentary initiatives (such as the Manchester Beacon for Pubic Engagement). The Festival includes family and educational activity to help “inspire and inform the innovative future workforce”. In 2009 the educational emphasis shifted from Year 9 to Year 8, to be able to reach people before they made GCSE choices. This resulted in a small, but positive increase in young people’s desire to follow STEM subjects further. The festival team are reviewing this to explore whether other ages and
methodologies would be more effective. Longitudinal tracking is theoretically possible, given the good relationships with schools and the universities in the region, should funding become available to do so. By 2009 (its third year) the Festival had grown from 50,000 to over 100,000 and from central Manchester to all ten Greater Manchester Boroughs. In 2010 the Festival developed its Community Engagement Strategy and co-‐created its first high profile sci-‐arts projects as part of its increasing interest in creative approaches to exploring science.
Further Information: www.manchestersciencefestival.com
Natalie Ireland, Manchester Science Festival Director n.ireland@mosi.org.uk