About the Science Festival Alliance

The Science Festival Alliance supports the development of science festivals by:

• Leveraging experience in the organization of festivals from as many sources as possible for the benefit of the field;

• Connecting festival organizers and festival partners for the exchange of best practices;

• Creating a Web-based resource center to collect, archive, and share information concerning all aspects of science festivals;

• Providing resources that help new science festivals get started;

• Facilitating national and regional partnerships, including collaborative programming and multi-site funding arrangements;

• Producing national meetings dedicated to the advancement of science festivals; and

• Coordinating multi-site evaluation of science festivals, and disseminating the results.

The Science Festival Alliance was created when the organizers of the San Diego Science Festival wished to launch their festival and sought assistance from the established Cambridge Science Festival, produced by the MIT Museum. The experience saved significant time, money, and agony, and was extremely valuable for both organizations. In 2009 the National Science Foundation provided funding for a network and collaboration that would generate similar exchanges between festival professionals.The grant includes direct support for the organization of regional science festivals by the University of California San Diego, the University of California San Francisco, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There is currently no formal membership structure. If you are interested in joining this effort in any capacity, please contact us.

Website credits

Website produced by the MIT Museum.

Website designed by the Sneaker Academy.

Thank you to David Wimberley for donating the sciencefestivals.com url address.