The Festival of Tomorrow (FoT), located in Swindon and first launched in 2021, is a public festival that aims to engage diverse audiences with science, innovation, and the arts. This year the festival brought together researchers, professionals, and the public to explore ideas of the future. ANTITHESES participated in the ‘Research for a Healthy Future’ event on February 20th at the Swindon Hub, to facilitate discussions on societal division and disagreement.
Swindon, one of the UK’s largest towns without a university, often lacks opportunities for academic engagement.
ANTITHESES sought to bridge this gap by mapping areas of public concern regarding disagreement, polarisation, and uncertainty in society. Our multidisciplinary team team included an ethicist, historian, philosopher, and public engagement professionals, who interacted with over 40 visitors, ranging from older adults to children.
Through structured and open-ended activities, we explored topics such as disability rights, climate change, politics, and AI. Our discussions revealed that many believe societal division is cyclical, but in today’s world, exacerbated by social media and political influences. Others argued that increased access to differing opinions makes division more visible rather than more prevalent.
We designed some exercises that allowed participants to see how common concerns shape our collective understanding of disagreement.
A word cloud generated from our discussions highlighted key themes, with terms like ‘disagreement,’ ‘division,’ ‘society,’ ‘media,’ and ‘opinion’ being most frequently mentioned across our activities.
Participants engaged in thought-provoking activities, reflecting on how power dynamics influence innovation, how authority figures shape discourse, and how academic freedom impacts problem-solving. Many raised concerns about short-term thinking overshadowing long-term solutions, with some believing that division is intentionally fostered for political or economic gain. Others suggested that disagreement is part of human nature and that learning to navigate differences is essential for a healthy society.
The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive. Visitors appreciated the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations and valued the presence of researchers and research engagement in a town often overlooked for such initiatives. The event demonstrated a strong public appetite for discussions on disagreement, suggesting that similar engagements with diverse groups of people would be valuable in the future.
Our experience at the Festival of Tomorrow reaffirmed the importance of facilitating reflective conversations to foster public dialogue and to better inform our work on interpreting and understanding disagreement and polarisation in UK society and beyond.