Collective Social Futures Festival of Social Science

16 Dec 2024

The 2024 CSF Festival of Social Science was built on last year’s inaugural event showcasing social science research undertaken at UCC. An evening at The Shtepps celebrated local artists, musicians and poets demonstrating how social science research can collaborate with the arts to conduct, connect, and communicate research on key local and global challenges. A full day symposium followed in the Aula Maxima with oral and poster presentations, panel discussions, a keynote speech by Professor Linda Connolly and the launch of the UCC Futures website.

The second annual Festival of Social Science opened on 25^th November with warm and inspiring words of welcome from President of UCC, Professor John O’Halloran and Professor John Cryan, Vice-President for Research, and Innovation.

Professor Maggie O’Neill, Director of Collective Social Futures and ISS21 also welcomed guests, artists, and community partners for a celebratory evening of socially engaged music, theatre, and spoken word at The Shtepps. The first day of the festival was the first day of the global campaign ‘16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence’ and Maggie invited Mary Crilly founding member and CEO of the Sexual Violence Centre Cork,  MA Women’s Studies graduate and NUI honorary doctorate to say a few words to the audience about the campaign and the work of SVCC.

Performances by Local Artists

Local artists who performed on the evening included:

• Rosie McCarthy – Traveller, Singer, Actor, Student
• Anton Floyd - Poet
• Fiona Leigh – Singer, actor, writer, and MA Women’s Studies graduate
• Citadel – A group of musicians formed in the Kinsale Road Accommodation centre in 2018.
• A forum theatre taster by MTU's Creativity and Change, and Sarah Robinson, UCC School of Applied Psychology.

Professor Maggie O’Neill said: “We enjoyed a wonderful night of music, theatre and spoken work and I am delighted that Collective Social Futures utilises this opportunity to showcase and celebrate these superbly talented artists at UCC. Thank you to each artist who performed on the evening and to everyone who attended and supported our artists and community partners.”

Maggie added: “Thanks also to Mary Crilly for sharing the importance of the 16 days of activism, if we can shine a light on the global campaign at our festival, we can contribute in a small way to raising awareness and addressing gender-based violence.”

CSF Social Science Symposium

Social Science Matters: Innovation, Co-Production and Transformation.

On November 26, a full day symposium followed in the Aula Maxima with oral and poster presentations and panel discussions.  Professor Cathal O’Connell, Interim Head of CACSSS and Dr James Kapalo, Vice Head of College – Research opened with day with inspiring words of welcome.

During the day, five panel discussions took place with speakers from across the university sharing their excellent social science scholarship and engaging in meaningful discussions relating to panel themes such as Innovation, New Materialisms and Social Pathologies, Climate Justice, the ‘polycrisis’ and Innovative methods, Re-imagining and enacting socially engaged research, Employment Transformations and Populism and the rise of far-right.

The well attended keynote address Undeservedly Forgotten: Gender-based violence, impunity, documents, and testimony was delivered by Professor Linda Connolly, Professor of Sociology and Director, Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, and the first Director of ISS21.

Prof Maggie O'Neill, Director of CSF & ISS21, Prof Linda Connolly, Maynooth University, and Dr James Borgonovo, University Historian, UCC and Dept of History.

Prof O’Neill said: “We had a superb day of speakers sharing their research coupled with  strong audience participation from colleagues and students from undergraduate to postgraduate. Thank you to everyone who presented and chaired the panels, to those who attended and added so much to the day with comments and questions  and of course to Professor Linda Connolly for her excellent, poignant, and thought-provoking keynote address.”

“We also launched the new Collective Social Futures website at the festival, and I encourage colleagues and students to visit the site to learn more about CSF work.

“The second annual CSF Festival of Social Science was a great success, and we look forward to planning the third one at UCC next year.”

UCC Futures – Collective Social Futures website

During the symposium, the news UCC Futures – Collective Social Futures website was unveiled. Going forward this website will be an excellent source of information about Collective Social Futures from stories of impact to news of events and projects.

Thank you to everyone who took part or attended the festival this year.

To learn more about the CSF Festival of Social Science visit https://www.ucc.ie/en/collective-social-futures/