Being Human Festival
Being Human Festival 2025: Get Involved!
The Being Human Festival brings together universities, museums, galleries, creative organisations, and community groups to run public engagement activities which showcase humanities research in ways that are accessible to the public.
Festival Dates: 6–15 November 2025
Application Deadlines:
- Festival Event Grants: 10 April 2025
- Unfunded Event Applications: 4 July 2025
The CPE strongly encourages applicants to apply for the 'funded' route first. However, if your application is unsuccessful, please email us at publicengagement@qmul.ac.uk. We have limited funds available that may support your project if it is approved via the 'unfunded' route.
2025 Theme: "Between the Lines"
"Our festival theme in 2025 is Between the Lines —a space of hidden histories, shifting borders, and unspoken meanings. From migration routes that redraw the map to the traces of erased histories, from the margins of a poem to the frontlines of protest, we invite researchers to explore boundaries, crossings, and intersections—and the spaces in between, where meaning is made and remade."
Being Human at Queen Mary
Since 2015, the Centre for Public Engagement have been supporting Queen Mary researchers to run activities as part of the Being Human Festival. The Festival offers our researchers the opportunity to:
- Develop an exciting public engagement activity/event that can have positive impacts on their work
- Get involved with a nation-wide showcase of humanities research
- Develop public engagement skills with tailored support from the CPE
You can get a taste of some of our previous Being Human Festival programmes by watching our video from the 2019 'This Time It's Personal' Festival Hub above that we ran in collaboration with Kings' College London.
Being Human 2023
Our 2025 programme is currently being developed—watch this space! In the meantime, here’s a look back at Being Human 2023, where QM researchers explored the theme "Rhyme or Reason" through interactive workshops, talks, and performances.