Organise an Event with an External Speaker

This guide is linked from our core how-to guide on Organising Activities & Events.

How to organise an event with an external speaker 

Students’ Union UCL facilitates thousands of external speaker requests every year and has policies and procedures in place to help protect freedom of speech within the law. We are committed to empowering and supporting our clubs and societies to organise events with a wide range of speakers that stimulate debate and further non-academic development for the benefit of students.  

Our external speaker process applies to all events, on or off campus, that use your society name, society budget or funds, or references UCL or Students' Union UCL in any capacity. These events require an external speaker form to be submitted at least 10 working days before the event. The event is bound by the Guidance for Chairs at External Speaker Events and the Briefing for External Speakers at Students’ Union UCL, as well as UCL's code of conduct and freedom of speech policies. 

You can read more about our freedom of speech policies here.

There are many benefits to hosting an external speaker event, from discussing important current affairs to hearing from experts in your industry. We want to support societies to bring a range of speakers to campus. If you’re considering hosting an external speaker event but don’t feel ready to fill out this form, please contact Intercultural Engagement Manager (Freedom of Speech), [email protected], and we can discuss your ideas and support you with the planning of the event.

Requesting an external speaker 

To request an external speaker, you must submit an External Speaker Request Form. This form must be submitted a minimum of 10 working days before your event. The form will not allow you to select an earlier date and your request will be rejected if you lie about the date.  

You must seek approval for all external speakers through this process and submit a separate request for each external speaker.  

You must ensure the Briefing for External Speakers document is provided to your proposed speaker before submitting this form. You must confirm that your proposed speaker agrees to comply with the policy in this webform.  

Failure to disclose full speaker details may result in your event being cancelled and disciplinary action. If your submission is not filled in correctly, we may need to reject your form, which may result in your event being postponed or cancelled.  

Depending on the nature of your event, you may be required to adhere to specific measures to mitigate any risk associated with your event. These will be discussed with you by a member of Students’ Union UCL staff and you must agree to follow them for your event to go ahead.  

Extraordinary external speaker requests 

We want our members to be able to hear about major national and international events, and understand the minimum requirement of 10 working days notice for external speaker requests is not always possible in times of urgent crisis.  

If you are hosting an activity with an external speaker in response to a significant and urgent event, where it would not have been possible to submit the request any earlier (e.g. the significant event hadn’t happened yet), you can submit an Extraordinary External Speaker Request form for us to review. 

Email your form to the Student Activities team at [email protected], with the subject line 'Extraordinary External Speaker Request Form'. Please mark your email as high importance, and copy in the Intercultural Engagement team - [email protected] and the Activities & Engagement Officer - [email protected].  

You should not advertise your event until your request has been approved.  

Groups or officers seeking to circumvent the external speaker process by using this extraordinary process without a legitimate reason may be considered for disciplinary action.  

If you have enquiries about this process, you can get in touch by emailing [email protected], calling 02076797239, or visiting the Student Activities Reception. 

You can also see our frequently asked questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an external speaker? 

• An external speaker is anyone that isn’t a UCL student or staff member. 

Does the process apply to online and off-campus events? 

• Yes, the process applies to all events with an external speaker regardless of where they are held. 

   

What about off campus events, jointly organised by more than one society? 

• You will be able to indicate on the form whether your event is off-campus, or a collaboration with other societies (for example your equivalent society at a different London university). 
• Where you are collaborating, both inside UCL and externally, we ask you to tell us who the lead society is. The lead society takes responsibility for following the relevant policies and procedures in the planning and delivery of the event. 

What is the Students' Union's approach to freedom of speech?

• The Students’ Union follows UCL’s Freedom of Speech Code of Practice. UCL is regulated by the Office for Students and bound by the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act of 2023.  

What is the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act? 

• The Act requires Universities, and by extension, Students’ Unions, to proactively protect free speech within the law. This means that if speech and topics fall within what is lawful, they must legally be allowed to speak on campus. 

When would a speaker request be rejected? 

• Speaker requests, as per the Higher Education Act, can only be rejected if: 1) the speaker is a supporter or member of a proscribed organisation, 2) the speech or content falls under hate speech, harassment, or defamation, 3) there is no way that the event can be safely managed without posing significant risk to attendees. 
• Legally, speaker requests cannot be rejected because a speaker has ‘controversial’ views or may cause offence (provided this is within the law). 

In which order should documents be submitted? 

Please submit forms in the following order: 

• Activity Registration Form (and wait for approval) 
• External Speaker Request Form 

I want to submit my external speaker request form, but the event is less than 10 working days away, what should I do? 

• To ensure fairness across all groups, we enforce the 10 working days policy across all external speaker events. Please reschedule your event to a new date to allow for 10 working days’ notice. 

When can I start advertising my external speaker event? 

• You must wait for your Activity Registration form and External Speaker Request Form to be approved. 

I want to run an external speaker event responding to an urgent need and it’s not possible to provide 10 days’ notice, what are my options? 

• If you want to run an event in response to a significant event, and it wasn’t possible to submit the form any earlier (for example if the event has just occurred), you can submit an Extraordinary External Speaker Request Form and we will review it. 
• You should not use this process to circumvent the external speakers process. Any group found to be doing this may be considered for disciplinary action. 

What is included in the students’ union’s risk assessment?  

• We review your proposed external speaker event based on the information you provide. We then prepare a risk assessment which includes details on the way the event must be managed to ensure everybody’s safety and compliance with Freedom of Speech rules. The risk assessment will consider many factors, including, but not limited, the likelihood of a speaker to attract media attention, or a subject matter with the potential to cause offense to others. 

Why have risk mitigations been placed on my event? 

• Risk mitigations are things you can do to reduce or manage the risk of your event and help us ensure that the event can be delivered safely and securely to the benefit of our student body. We want to facilitate as many events as we can. Risk mitigations help us ensure that the safety and wellbeing of all students is protected. 

What risk mitigations could be placed on my event? 

• Risk mitigations may include (not limited to): 
• The event being limited to students only. 
• The event being limited to UCL students only. 
• UCL security in place. 
• Change of venue to a more suitable space. 
• Advanced risk assessment to be completed, allowing us to better understand potential hazards and support you to ensure the event can go ahead safely, 
• An agreed number of event stewards from the Students’ Union or the society in attendance. 

Who can I speak to about all of this? 

• You can get in touch with [email protected] to discuss external speaker events and freedom of speech. For more general society queries, please contact [email protected].