Preview: The Imperial Festival

M@
By M@ Last edited 142 months ago
Preview: The Imperial Festival

The name might be suggestive of a grandiloquent Edwardian exhibition, but the upcoming Imperial Festival is really a look at the future. Imperial College will hold a public open weekend on 11-12 May where you can learn more about the world-class research coming out of the university.

We hope you're good at multi-tasking:

Visitors will have the chance to meet an astronaut, analyse their fingerprints, try their hand at surgery and have a pint with a professor, while listening to music and comedy.

Other diversions include a talk on how the university saved the Leaning Tower of Pisa and a look at paralympic technology developed at Imperial. A skateboarding Isaac Newton might also put in an appearance. The pint with the professor, by the way, takes place in the delightfully named pop-up pub, the Haemo Globe Inn (tip: order a bloody Mary).

This is the first time the university has opened its doors and windows so widely to the general public. It's a welcome development, and follows the lead of UCL, which has a well-established and growing programme of fun public events to put its researchers in the public eye.

Imperial's South Kensington campus is right next door to the Science Museum and Natural History Museum, so why not make it a weekend to brush up on your science?

Imperial Festival takes place 11-12 May at the South Kensington campus. All events are free, though food and drink are not. Full programme here.

Last Updated 01 May 2012