Bradford Impact Festival 2026

This year the Bradford Impact Festival is focussed on the University of Bradford's contribution to Bradford 2025 and the impact we have made, and will continue to make, within the city of Bradford and district.

Throughout the day, there will be a range of talks and panels highlighting the benefits (and challenges) of working with creative methods and embracing culture in combination with STEM research and technologies. University of Bradford academics will discuss their own experiences of delivering culturally embedded research in association with the UK City of Culture. Please refer to the agenda below for full details of the programme.

Exhibition

An exhibition showcasing the University of Bradford’s research associated with the UK City of Culture will be available to view throughout the day, including many of the visual and material outputs created from the research.

Tickets

You can either register for the whole day or choose tickets to specific lectures individually.

Info: Interim Vice Chancellor. Prof. Nick Braisby, and the Chair of Trustees for Bradford 2025, Kersten England CBE.

Info: Change in understanding or perception is often undervalued as a type of impact, in part because it is easy to capture in the immediate present but much more difficult to trace the long-term effects. However, a change in perception can be deeply significant on an individual level, sometimes more so than any other type of impact. It is also very often the foundational change that must occur to enable further impact. This panel explores how art can be used to stimulate deeply meaningful changes in perception among individuals and groups.

Info: Games are a particularly engaging method of translating research for a new audience. This is an opportunity to hear from two of our academics who have recently created games for Bradford 2025 about the process and then try your hand at playing one of the games.

Info: During this hour, some of the academics involved in the projects highlighted in the exhibition will be available to answers questions and provide more in depth information about the research and/or impact.

Info: Food outlets will be open throughout the campus.

Info: The excavations in Lister park have had a significant impact outside of academia by connecting Bradford communities to a piece of Bradford history that has since been forgotten, the 1904 exhibition, as well as shedding light on a more controversial aspect of that history, the Somali living village. During this talk, Bradford archaeologists will speak about discovering the material remains and piecing together the socal history of what occurred at this remarkable historical event.

Info: This panel brings professionals in the HEI arena together to discuss the value of incorporating arts and culture into research and the ways we might look to building on the foundations created by Bradford 2025.

Info: The is an opportunity to enter our 360 degree CapCo immersive space, the Igloo, and hear how it was used for the City of Culture research, while immersing yourself in the visual outputs of the projects.

Info: This is an evening event welcoming the public of Bradford (including the University of Bradford) to view the exhibition and hear about select research projects conducted for the UK City of Culture and the benefits they have had for the city of Bradford in more detail. The talks will feature diverse projects, all of which included significant engagement with Bradford communities or Bradford 2025.

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Host or Publisher University of Bradford