Designed collaboratively by:

During four days in September 2014, SIX, Collaborate and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation designed a festival that brought together the ‘unusual suspects’ – individuals and organisations from youth clubs to ‘do tanks’ to multinational corporations- who are making real social change happen by working together in new and different ways.

Blending international expertise and innovation with local thinking and practice from across the UK, this festival featured a collection of interlinked events that drew out the ways in which collaboration and social innovation can work in sync – and asked how this can help address some of the most difficult issues we face in society today.

The Festival was a huge success, with more than 35 different organisations coming together to host 28 different events across London over 4 days exploring how we could collaborate and work together in new ways with unusual suspects to solve some of society’s biggest challenges.

We’re now busy working hard to plan, prepare and produce the Unusual Suspects festival 2016! It doesn’t feel that far away, so it feels like a good time to say ‘hello’ and let you know that Jordan from SiX and La Toyah from Collaborate will be leading on this year’s work, laying the foundation work for next year’s festival.

Building on the success of the Unusual Suspects Festival in 2014, we want to find out who the unusual suspects are and further explore the process of collaboration. If you’re doing something new or unusual, get in touch so we can highlight your work!