Glasgow Science Festival in Action 2026
GSF in Action 2026: Public Engagement & Events Training
Join Dr Deborah McNeill, Director of the Glasgow Science Festival (GSF) and the GSF team for an exciting opportunity to collaborate, create and deliver highly engaging STEM activities for young people. Postgraduate students from the Colleges of Science & Engineering (CoSE) and Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences (MVLS) are invited to join our extended training scheme, taking place online and in-person throughout spring and summer 2026.
There will be a combination of taught sessions and small group work, focusing on content development. Followed by a process of review and refinement. You will then deliver your groups activities at an event during GSF 2026, which runs from the 4th to 14th June.
Throughout the course you will develop useful skills such as:
- Effective group working
- Understanding your audience
- Development and delivery of high-quality STEM engagement content
- Creation of supporting materials
- Project and budget planning
The programme is a series of taught components and self-led group work. Some sessions are timetabled and you will schedule others to suit your group. Due to the nature of the training, learning is progressive and builds directly on previous sessions. As such, to sign up for the course you must be able to attend ALL sessions on the 5th and 6th March (sessions 1-6) and the delivery session on the 9th or 10th June.
|
Date |
Session |
Time |
Type |
Session Title |
|
Thurs 5th March |
1 |
10.00-10.45 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Intro to PE |
|
|
2 |
11.00-12.00 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Creating tabletop activities |
|
|
3 |
13:00-15:30 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Activity development |
|
4 |
15.30-16.00 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Team roles |
|
|
Fri 6th March |
5 |
10.00-10.30 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Creating tabletop activities- part 2 |
|
|
6 |
10.45-16.00 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Activity development- part 2 & Next steps |
|
Wed 18th March |
7 |
60mins per group |
Group- online Teams |
Progress review with GSF Team |
|
Tues 14th April |
8 |
90mins per group |
Group- in person, GSF office |
Play Session |
|
Tues 12th May |
9 |
10.00-13.00 |
Class- In person, Clarice Pears |
Practice delivery session |
|
Tues 9th or Wed 10th June |
10 |
10.00-16.00 |
Class- In person, Botanics |
Delivery at Glasgow Science Festival |
Programme Info
Sessions 1-6: Days 1 & 2 are compulsory sessions that ALL participants must attend. Both days are delivered in person at the Clarice Pears building. You will learn how to develop an effective engagement activity, be allocated a group and theme then begin development of your activities.
After session 6: You will work in your small groups and will require some working outside the timetabled sessions, timings and workloads tbc within your groups.
Session 7: Progress review with the GSF Team to review material submitted following deadline 1.
Session 8: Play session in-person at the University of Glasgow. Chance to test your activities and get feedback.
Session 9: A chance to finalise your materials, practice and feedback session in-person at the Clarice Pears building. Groups will present final activities to each other.
Session 10: Delivery of your activity at the festival. As part of your application, you will be asked to select one of the optional delivery days during GSF in June. Please note your availability will be used to determine your group and cannot be changed.
Joining Info
Location: Online- Microsoft Teams and in-person at the Clarice Pears building and GSF offices
Participants: This project is funded by the University of Glasgow CoSE & MVLS Graduate schools, with space for 16 CoSE and 16 MVLS PGR students. With thanks to our funders for their ongoing support.
Application deadline: Thurs 12th Feb, 5pm
Application response: We will respond by Thurs 19th Feb to confirm participation on the course.
GSF in Action Application Form 2026
GSF in Action 2026 Info & Timetable - download a copy of the course info shared above