About IF Oxford

IF Oxford is organised by Oxfordshire Science Festival (Charity number 1151361), with Trustees and a small team that work year-round to produce the Festival.

We want the complexity, wonder and opportunities of scientific research to be explored, challenged and enjoyed across society.

Explore our last festival and contribute to the next one. We believe festivals are the most powerful way to bring people together, inspiring curious minds of all ages and backgrounds to access and help shape new ideas.

IF Oxford 2018 Festival Programme

IF Oxford 2018 Festival Report

The call for participation is open now and will close on Tuesday 30 April:

Download IF Oxford 2019 Expressions of Interest form

Values:

• We value high quality research, teaching, and practice in knowledge development.
• We contribute to society by creating accessible, innovative and high-quality material for public audiences.
• We are independent of political or industrial interests and offer a neutral platform to present and amplify complex evidence-based ideas.
• We are inclusive and help cultivate the full diversity of voices from all backgrounds and experiences.
• We build cooperative relationships with organisations that share our values, and are committed to the advancement of knowledge and public engagement with research.
• Explore our Policies on this page, ratified by the Oxfordshire Science Festival Board of Trustees: Ian Thompson, Jennifer Bardsley, Georgina Ferry, Anne Osterrieder, Tim Hart.

Objectives:

• Support science festival activity across Oxfordshire and any other geographical region of strategic importance.
• Run a Festival in Oxford with wide public appeal that uses a mixture of live, face-to-face events and digital media to present and initiate discussion on contemporary research and innovation from Oxford and its partner locations.
• Develop the community of practice for public research engagement via the medium of a festival and its associated methodologies.

Acknowledgements:

• We retain editorial control of our associated events to ensure they meet these values.
• All academic disciplines contribute to the vigour of the research endeavour, including the natural sciences, technologies, medicine, the social sciences, the arts and the humanities.*
• The research arc encompasses curiosity-led research, areas of research with a strategic focus, innovation and development for commercial or charitable purposes, socialisation of ideas through democratic processes and any coherent responses from public audiences.
• There has been a science festival in Oxford since 1992 with 500,000 members of the public visiting over the past 25 years.

Publications:

• We describe the context for developing the festival in Oxford in our Landscape Review (Oxfordshire Science Festival, 2017) 
• University of Cambridge (Dane Comerford) response to Science and Technology Committee on Science communication and engagement (UK Parliament, 2016)
• Science Live (2016, Wellcome Trust) was a transatlantic pilot study to research science events in the UK (led by Dane Comerford) and USA (led by Ben Wiehe), seeking areas for development.
• Review of informal science learning (Wellcome Trust, 2012) is a helpful background to how science is perceived and presented in the UK.

*Ensuring a successful UK research endeavour BIS, December 2014: “In this review the terms ‘research’ and ‘science’ are usually used in the context of the entire academic landscape, reflecting the Latin root, ‘scientia’, meaning knowledge. All academic disciplines contribute to the vigour of the research endeavour, including the natural sciences, technologies, medicine, the social sciences, the arts and the humanities.