The Science Festival Alliance fosters a professional community dedicated to cultivating a healthy relationship between science and society through festivals and other public events.

For over 15 years, we have done that as a collaborative network. When we started in 2009, the idea of a science festival was relatively new to North America. By 2020, we had grown to 75 member festivals in the US and Canada. Collectively, these festivals annually connected 2 million people to 20,000 scientists, engineers, and STEM practitioners by fostering collaborations with over 4,000 diverse organizations.

Many festivals are now continuing this work, but it was all severely affected by the pandemic. That disruption did provide the opportunity to re-examine how the Alliance ought to evolve. We are in the midst of that evolution now. To begin with, our community of practice is now gathering at www.science.events. Membership there centers on individual humans, not organizations or initiatives. Among other things, members can register their ongoing event initiatives at science.events, and that is open to any format, not just festivals.

Crucially, the Science Festival Alliance can continue on within the umbrella of this structure. The network for learning has not gone away: anyone affiliating with a festival at science.events has access to festival-specific connections and resources. But now that there is the broader organizational structure of science.events, the question is what additional good can be done by a Science Festival Alliance that stands for a certain way of doing things? We have some ideas...but all we can say at the moment is:

"We're working on it."

Want to work on it with us? Use the contact info here or at science.events.

In the meantime, please excuse aspects of the site here at sciencefestivals.org that reflect an Alliance in the midst of an evolutionary step.