Welcome to the 2026 Festival
An introduction to the festival from Professor David Cowan, ESRC Strategic Lead and Journal of Law Society Chair in Socio Legal Studies.
I am excited to invite – and welcome – you to this year’s Festival of Social Sciences. This year’s Festival theme is “Money, Finance, and the Cost of Living”, which comes at a particularly apt moment in our lives when everything has just got so much more expensive as a result, in part, of geopolitical events. I cannot remember a more important time for us as social scientists (together with our third sector and industry partners) to demonstrate to you what our work can do for you, your families, and the world around us.
So, on 27 October 2026, we invite and encourage you and your families to Be a Social Scientist, exploring through playful, creative activities what social science can offer us.
We have lots of free activities on that day to inspire you, your family and friends. At its best, the social sciences offer innovative ways of examining themes and deliver their ideas well beyond the old fashioned “chalk and talk” method.
When we were thinking about our programme, we encouraged our academics to think about innovative ways of delivering their outstanding research. We wanted our Festival to challenge us, the way we live, and the ways in which we make do.
As a result, I am delighted that our programme offers such a diverse range of opportunities for you to engage in our activities. For example, you and your family are invited, disarmingly, to imagine a world without money – how would stuff get made, how would we get what we need, and what should we do about inequalities?
Please take time to think about our children’s lunches – here in Wales we have the benefit of free school meals, but what goes in them, what do they cost, and what would a perfect lunch look like? And think about our Welsh language, and how it can work with the social sciences
Social sciences work creatively and playfully, and it is great to see our colleagues really think about and use the world around them to help us explore its potential beyond our textbooks. My kids loved getting messy, and there is the opportunity for yours to make clay models that will help them explore the world around them. They can use lego to build houses that get them to think about the shift to low carbon technologies, or use it to explore how school environments can support the mental health of neurodivergent children.
Beyond our Be a Social Scientist day, we are supporting A level sociology and GCSE Social Studies curricula through various activities, also supported by the British Sociological Association.
Thinking about how, if at all, computers can exhibit intelligence, or supporting the really difficult conversations at school about consent, our academics are working with your children to support their studies. They are the next gen social scientists, and we are inspired by the Well-being of Future Generations mission that we have here in Wales.
Academics are often accused of living in ivory towers. That is not what we do at Cardiff. Inspired by our Global-Civic mission, we actively seek out partnerships and relationships within and beyond higher education, which enriches our work and the communities with which we work. This Festival enables us to showcase that work, and I hope you agree with me that it is inspirational and exciting.
