The Centre for Societal Engagement

Our next steps

Societal engagement is about inspiring and nurturing a sense of curiosity. It is about creating accessible and meaningful opportunities to exchange ideas, insights and skills. From our festivals to our summer schools, our maker programmes to our community partnerships, engagement activities delivered by teams across the breadth of Imperial bring a wealth of benefit to all involved. Our collective engagement work has grown in momentum, ambition and scale in recent years, driven by our Strategy for Engaging with Society, and we are excited to announce the next step in this journey: the Centre for Societal Engagement at Imperial.  

Our vision is for the Centre to ignite curiosity for Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Business (STEMB) in society through our collaborations, contributions, and communications driving transformative inclusion on a local, national, and global scale.  

Our mission is to provide evidence-led, targeted and joined-up interventions starting from early years through to youth and adulthood in line with a long-term roadmap for STEMB engagement. With an emphasis on underserved groups, we will partner with our internal and external communities generating a culture where co-creation flourishes to achieve our vision. 

“Despite efforts to engage the public in research there remains a significant gap between those who feel able to make informed choices, to question, challenge and influence research and innovation, and those who feel disconnected, underrepresented and disenfranchised. For this group, science is something that is done to you, not something in which you have a voice. In the next 20 years, we need to make the next step in the evolution of the place of science in society. It’s not about science and society, it’s got to be science in society.” Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser (UKRI, CEO)

 The Centre will deliver upon the following aims for our internal and external communities:  

• Enrich Imperial’s community by providing meaningful opportunities for engagement
• Make our STEMB engagement more accessible and inclusive helping increase science capital
• Break down barriers for learners to access different types of STEMB education, unlocking skills and nurturing the STEMB workforce
• Partner to maximise STEMB engagement opportunities locally, nationally and globally
• Ensure societal engagement impacts are the best that we can deliver. 

Whether a member of staff, student, alumni or partner – you are all key to this next stage of societal engagement at Imperial. We are looking forward to continuing the conversation with you.  

• Share your thoughts and ideas with us by email  
• Sign up to our societal engagement newsletter to be kept up to date
• Take a look at our current community engagement opportunities, public engagement Lates and Festival programmes, schools outreach and international relations work, as well as societal engagement training opportunities.  

 
The Centre for Societal Engagement at Imperial will be hosted by a team from across our Public and Community Engagement and Outreach groups and championed by Professor Maggie Dallman. For any queries related to the Centre, please contact us at societal_engagement@imperial.ac.uk.