Festival of Social Sciences

27 Nov 2023

Last week, The Festival of Social Sciences, UCC Futures – Collective Social Futures first event took place. The festival comprised a full day symposium showcasing social science research across UCC, an engaging evening of music and spoken word performances and a book launch.

Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Kieran McCarthy attended the opening evening event at The Shtepps where performances by Misneach Hip Hop, Citadel World Music, Will Keohane, Poet and UCC Theatre students took place.

The following day at the symposium,  welcome addresses were made by UCC President, Professor John O’Halloran; Professor Chris Williams, Head of College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, and Professor Maggie O’Neill, Director of ISS21 and Collective Social Futures.

The symposium got underway with three sessions titled; Critically Analysing Societal Complexities: Social Difference, Migration and Diversity, Enacting Social Futures: Re-envisioning Democracy, Activism and Social Transformation and Re-thinking Social Futures: Caring and Inclusive Relations.

Looking back on the success of the festival, Professor Maggie O’Neill said:

The Festival of Social Science was a wonderful celebration of world class research at UCC on migration, sustainability, traveller children's education, climate change, caring relations, often using innovative, creative, participatory methodologies, as well as rigorous critical theoretical analyses.

The evening of socially engaged performances  by Citadel, Misneach, Will Keohane, UCC  Theatre students and Youth Theatre young people was SO inspiring, with excellent feedback from audiences.

The board of CSF will be planning forthcoming festival activities after Christmas - with some community facing collaborative workshops with our community partners, so watch this space!