Our programme of engaging events for the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2024 made a successful return this autumn.
Between 19 October and 9 November 2024, 44 researchers from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Management shared their work over three weeks with 3,309 visitors and event attendees.
Our 2024 programme included film screenings, exhibitions, panel discussions, and lectures, building on the success of our contributions to the first year of the Festival of Social Science.
We've been thrilled by the response to our Festival of Social Science events this year. These events have showcased the diversity of the work we're carrying out here at the University of Bath with and for people to understand and tackle some of the challenges facing society today.
Professor Emma Carmel, Associate Dean(Research) - Faculty of Humanities & Social Science
Research Assembly
This year, we devised the Research Assembly, bringing together our researchers and community-based and civil society organisations. At the Percy Community Centre, we convened a space for our social scientists, their partners, and the wider community of organisations in Bath and North East Somerset to celebrate existing work and make new connections. At the inaugural Research Assembly, we invited contributions on the theme of children and young people, presenting a lunchtime showcase of stands, exhibitions and films on the topics including:
- injury prevention in sport
- art-based interventions tackling child exploitation
- young people's pro-environmental behaviour choices
- how parents discuss weight with children
- childhood language development disorders
The Research Assembly also included a series of masterclasses delivered by Stacey Pottinger from the local company Octopus Impact on measuring and evaluating social impact.
Over the course of the event, we were joined by 97 colleagues from the University and across community-based and civil society organisations, including B&NES council, Jamie's Farm, Bath Rugby Foundation, Youth Connect South West, Bath City Farm, Bath Area Play Project, and National Trust.
An exciting programme of events
The programme we put together for the Festival included various events with and for different audiences. We had a panel discussion between Penny Miles (Politics, Languages and International Studies) and youth and female football fans who discussed their experiences attending international championship games in community venues in north and south Wales. We also screened Roy Maconachie's (Social & Policy Sciences) Tobacco Slave and creatively discussed prison architecture inspired by Yvonne Jewkes' (Social & Policy Sciences) research.
Other events included the Images of Research exhibition at Bath Spa railway station, a Minerva lecture with the Centre for Death and Society, and online chat-based question-and-answer events on the social news platform Reddit.
Check out the Festival of Social Science 2024 report for full details of the University of Bath's 2024 programme.
The Festival of Social Science
Since 2002, the Festival of Social Science has been a UK-wide celebration of the social sciences supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Across four weeks in the autumn (Saturday 19 October to Saturday 9 November 2024), social science researchers have the opportunity to deliver activities and events that engage audiences with their work and highlight the value that social science research brings to our everyday lives.
Dean Veall is Deputy Head of Public Engagement at the University of Bath
Respond
