ACCESS Assemblies

The Annual Assembly is a key event in the ACCESS calendar. It has three primary aims:

To encourage new thinking about the contribution of the social sciences to tackle environmental problems
To increase connections and network building across boundaries (e.g. career stage, discipline, sector)
To embed the ACCESS Guiding Principles, in terms of ensuring the event integrates Knowledge Co-Production, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and Environmental Sustainability

The Assembly welcomes Environmental Social Scientists across academia, policy, civil society and the third sector. We also extend our invitation to others who are interested in collaborating with ESS, e.g. Climate Scientists.

ACCESS Assembly 2026 will run from Wednesday 18 to Thursday 19 June. We are currently planning the event. Look out for updates here.

ACCESS Assembly 2025

At this year’s ACCESS Assembly, we discussed place-sensitive just transitions and effective interdisciplinarity.

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ACCESS Assembly 2024

Last year’s Assembly explored the ways we can have impactful knowledge exchange across different sectors. We discussed how we might then start to influence policy.

Break out session at the ACCESS Assembly

Exeter University welcomed social scientists from across academia, public and private sectors from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. The aim over the two days to get together and spark new ideas and networks.

The main aim of the two days was to bring together the ACCESS network. Inviting university expert researchers and ACCESS partners to start thinking about how we might deliver some of the project’s aims.

This was just one of the questions we asked ourselves before organising our first ACCESS Annual Assembly in 2022. Since then we have been evaluating our larger events and we are keen to share our findings.

Early in the planning for the Assembly, we decided we wanted to welcome in-person and online visitors. It was important for us to:

Invite people from various disciplines and champion the benefits of collaboration and co-production.
Be inclusive and offer equally enriching experiences and networking opportunities to those in the room and those sitting at their desktop.
Experiment and move away from the conference norm of short presentation slots and parallel sessions over lunch to something more relaxed that would allow people to think, ask questions and connect with others.
Incorporate our Guiding Principles (EDI, Environmental Sustainability and Knowledge Coproduction)

From planning to evaluation, the report focuses on venue hire, accommodation, event programme, audio & visual technology, networking opportunities and how to incorporate our Guiding Principles.

Guidance for Planning and Hosting a Successful Hybrid Event -Reflections from the ACCESS Annual Assembly 2022 PDF

ACCESS Assembly 2022 Event Evaluation Report Online

ACCESS Assembly 2023 Event Evaluation Report PDF

ACCESS Assembly 2024 Event Evaluation Report Online

ACCESS Assemblies