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.

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.