New Funding for Science Festival Alliance

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation recently announced a two-year award supporting the growth of new science festival initiatives throughout the country. The grant to the Science Festival Alliance will focus on starting independent festivals in communities with a relatively small resource base, including rural areas. Guidelines for applying to be one of 12 new science festival locations will be announced soon. In addition to challenge grants, travel assistance, and mentoring for new initiatives, the funding supports the development of materials that will help all science festivals learn from the project. The project is administered by SFA staff at the MIT Museum in close cooperation with four lead festivals: Wisconsin Science Festival, St. Petersburg Science Festival, Colorado Springs Science Festival, and SCOPE Science and Technology Days. National collaborators include The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), and the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS).