Welcome to the UK Science Festivals Network Conference 2025 resources page! Here, you’ll find a selection of materials from our sessions.

Whether you attended the conference or are exploring the content remotely, you can access valuable insights, information, and session presentations from our expert speakers.

Association of Science and Discovery Centres:

Inclusion handbook

Here are the top tips from the session:

• Do your research – understand where the potential connection points are for activists/protestors; profile your festival including sponsors, Board members, speakers, content and topics.

• Identify the risks – Using the profiling and connection points, identify where there are potential safety and strategic risks. Bear in mind that we, as festival organisers, have a duty of care to all our stakeholders and a responsibility to keep people safe.

• Understand their why – explore why they do what they do and what they are trying to achieve with protests/disruptions
• Consider the value to the festival – our attendees want to engage in this discussion but also want to be safe. We have a remit to enable different perspectives to have a voice but this can take a range of forms, depending on the festival context, the relationship and the level of risk.

• Prepare – recognise that even if you decide not to engage, they might turn up anyway. Prepare plans to keep everyone safe if this happens and train the team in how to respond (and keep it simple!)

• Set boundaries (and explain why) – If you open the conversation and engage protestors in your festival, keep it fair and set boundaries so the expectations are clear for everyone.

• Explore co-creation – depending on who you are engaging with, consider exploring how you could co-curate/co-create activity with them as part of the festival, or as a Fringe.