The Great Exhibition Road Festival is Imperial’s largest public engagement event of the year. Taking place over a full weekend, Imperial runs the festival together with the local museums (V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Royal College of Music and Royal Albert Hall). Great exhibition road is closed to traffic and becomes full of people. Visitors from all ages and backgrounds engage in diverse activities featuring science and the arts during the celebrations. Over 54,000 people pre-registered for this year’s event!
Imperial researchers spent the weekend running their stands and answering questions from the curious attendees. Georgia Millsom, a PhD student in the Department of Materials, wrote a blog about her experience volunteering at the event.
The Science and Engineering Research for Cultural Heritage Network (SERCH) ran an exhibit at the Great Exhibition Road Festival back in mid-June. Ranging from Mechanical Engineering to Materials, a variety of Imperial’s departments were present with the aim of demonstrating the connections Imperial has to Cultural Heritage. Visitors were also able to delve into a range of objects from the Imperial College Archives. Many hadn’t considered Imperial’s own heritage before as it is a newer university than Oxford, Cambridge, and St Andrews. The teaching aids were hugely popular, with visitors guessing about their uses.