Membership

Become a science.events member!

You’re passionate about live, in-person events.

Maybe you enjoy participating in them, but you are definitely fired up about being on the other side: being the creative force inventing great experiences, the productive force wrangling all of the variables in an event, the empathic force delighting in the way events connect people, or the strategic force utilizing live events to drive forward long-term plans.

You’re interested in finding others like you.

You may work with public science events full time, but it’s more likely they are only one part of your professional role, a side gig, or a volunteer role. What matters is that you are interested enough in public science events that you are eager to connect with others and talk shop.

You’re curious about how “science” fits into things, even if you don't use the word often.

Maybe you’re curious about how the values of your science-related mission can come to life in public events. Maybe you’re curious about how integrating science into events can support, connect, or create change in your local community. Maybe you’re curious about how mashing up science and culture can make things more interesting, provoking, or fun. You're likely curious about how people use the word "science" differently. Wherever your curiosity lies, you definitely do not need to identify as a scientist.

Sounds like you belong here!

Membership is free.

All members must meet three criteria.

Members must be oriented humans

We welcome new members with an orientation and introductions to other members. In turn, all members are expected to respectfully honor the collegial spirit of the relationships they build here. Membership is for individuals, but it's easy for whole teams to sign up one-by-one and affiliate with a single Event Initiative. As much as we appreciate our colleagues in other regions, we only have the capacity to open membership to the US and Canada (for now!).

Members must actively participate

Every member should be in contact with other members every year, which is presumably why you want to become a member in the first place. There are many ways to do this. To help, each member is assigned to a regional group. Part of this participation also involves providing information about your activity every year, which is currently as simple as completing a survey with five questions.

Members must be affiliated with an Ongoing Event Initiative

Members are affiliated with live, often-in-person events that connect public audiences and science/STEM in some way. This should be reflected with an affiliation to at least one Ongoing Event Initiative registered at science.events. Think of this like what you would put on a name tag: registering your Ongoing Event Initiatives Initiative helps the rest of us quickly see what kind of events you are involved in. This might be an annually recurring festival, an ongoing event series, all of the public events associated with an organization, the new event series you are hoping to get started, etc. And if this doesn’t fit your situation, we’ll try to find an arrangement that does: Reach out to us, tell us why you are interested in joining, and we'll in touch.

Start your membership now

1. Complete a simple individual membership profile.

2. Affiliate with a registered Event Initiative. If the Event Initiative is already registered at science.events, you'll be able to quickly initiate a simple process to get approval from that Initiative's point of contact. If you are registering an Event Initiative for the first time, there will be a quick verification process by real live humans.

3. You’re in! Get oriented by checking out the members-only section, and look for an introduction to your regional group.

It’s really free? What’s the catch?

Membership is free. If there is a catch, it's that we only want members that are interested in sharing and participating. But this should come naturally for you: Presumably it is one of the main reasons you would want to join in the first place. That participation can take many forms as long as it involves substantial contact with other members at some point in a given year. There are four check-ins with all members every year, and you should respond to at least one of those. Once a year all members are asked to provide information about their event activity by filling out a very short survey (the current version only has five required questions).

I’m still not sure. Can't I just skip membership?

Maybe you're just not a "joiner." We get it. We can still be friends.

But membership helps us all know who's been invited when members get together, or when conversations take place in a members-only space. And when we do get together, members are the ones that can set the agenda.

Plus, as great as the localized impact of your events is, it makes for an even better story when you can show that this impact is also part of something taking place on a grand scale. Science.events is working to help us all tell that story.

Wait, what am I joining exactly?

There is a little bit of awkwardness around the name of this thing. "Science.Events" is just a URL, and not necessarily the best name for a living community of practice. At the same time, Science.Events as a website with a members-only section is the primary platform we're all using to stay organized. And these are still early days. Science.Events launched in 2024. We're building the boat as we sail it, and we're doing that together. So is this a professional association? An incubator for cultural action? A research and knowledge sharing forum? We're not worrying about the right label right now. Instead, we're trying to keep things minimally organized without getting in the way of the real thing: Getting good people together.

I feel like this should be for me, but I don’t seem to fit

You've made it this far, so surely you're interested enough in this to just give it a go. But if there is something about the way things are set up that makes you feel like you are excluded, please reach out to us, and we'll do what we can do be accommodating.

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What about the Science Festival Alliance?

It's still alive and well! The festivals belonging to the Alliance can now be found at both Science.Events and sciencefestivals.org. Individuals affiliated with Alliance festivals start their membership here at Science.Events, and Alliance conversations and convenings use the Science.Events platform.