This grant supports a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Science Festival Alliance (SFA) to allow the SFA—a network and incubator of community-based science festivals across the country—to add nine more science festivals in communities with small resource bases. Over the next two years, the collaboration will select and recruit nine community science festivals for inclusion in the network, providing nine challenge grants that facilitate expansion and development. Science festival members would then be ready to mentor future new science festivals. The project promises to accelerate the geographical spread of the science festival movement and promote science festivals as an effective instrument to advance public understanding of science.

Launched in 2008 with the help of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the World Science Festival is perhaps the world’s premiere science festival, bringing first class scientists from all over the globe to New York City to lead the public in a weeklong series of panels, presentations, and events in celebration of all that is fun and fascinating about science. More than 50 panels and events are targeted at all ages and education levels, with recent panels devoted to such diverse topics as the science and history of beer-making, the use of electrical stimulation to improve cognitive function, and the effects of zero gravity environments on the human body. To increase its reach beyond New York City, the festival produces online and video segments and education material for science teachers to incorporate into their curricula. Funds from this grant provide continued support to the World Science Festival for another three years.