SALLY FORT

For the fourth year running I'm evaluating Manchester Science Festival. Each year the Festival Director and I look at baselines of attendance and participation, and focus on a different specialist area of understanding. This year's specialism is about what motivates people to attend a science festival in the city of Manchester. In a change to our usual approach, I'll be undertaking desk research of other reports about visits to the city of Manchester, science festivals around the country, public engagement activity, and cultural tourism and visits. From this we'll draw out some compelling comparisons the festival can learn from, and gauge it against a sample of visitor research from this year's events.

Having worked with Artsmark over its previous 10 years, I'm delighted to be working as a trainer, assessor and moderator for the new scheme. This involves supporting schools, understand the application criteria, assessing their applications, and moderating the work of other assessors across the country. The best thing about this work is the chance to visit so many schools to see the richness of arts in schools, and talk to the pupils and staff thriving in their art work.

Nowgen are a company who use arts and creative activity to increase public understanding of genetics. I'm really pleased to be working with them once again to evaluate their Looking Forward project, in which artists work with young cystic fibrosis patients to create a new online resource exploring gene therapy as a potential treatment for the condition. It's a very complex and therefore fascinating project which you can read more about *here*

I'm working with Cornerhouse to produce a seminar about digital engagement in the arts. They'll be sharing their experience about using broadcasting industry quality HD live streaming equipment with other UK galleries. The equipment was used to experiment with increasing audiences for contemporary art through digital media. We'll be hearing about other innovative methods of digital engagement across the arts, and broadcasting opportunities with BBC and Channel 4. I'll be helping Cornerhouse prepare and run the event including planning content, identifying speakers, and securing the invited audience.

I'm currently evaluating the Community Engagement programme accompanying the major redevelopment of the Birmingham History galleries. This means finding out what participants are getting from the work, how the organisation is befitting by having local people involved, how they could be doing things a bit better, and eventually, how successful the final exhibitions are. You can find out more here http://www.bmag.org.uk/new-birmingham-history-galleries