A CHOICE OF EVENTS FROM FRIENDS
Friends of Imperial College has been running events for over twenty years, bringing the best, most interesting, most challenging and most important scientific developments from Imperial College London to the widest possible audience.
Over each academic year, we organise a whole programme of events - diverse both in topics and types. You can read more about the type of events offered below or from the drop down menu above.
Public lectures
Everyone is welcome to our in-person public lectures at Imperial. These events take place in lecture theatres at the South Kensington Campus, Imperial College London. Each consists of a presentation from an Imperial expert for around 1 hour with Q&A for 15/20 mins, ending with post-event refreshments in the lecture foyer. In-person tickets range from £10-£15.
We have an allocation of free tickets for schools and students for each public lecture. If you are a school, make sure you register here to get news of these events and then you can book them for FREE.
You can also view a selection of recordings on our YouTube channel here of online lectures held over the last few years.
Member-exclusive events
Whilst everyone is welcome to book for our public lectures, annual Membership of Friends - from only £25 per year - gives you access to so much more! From Behind-the-Scenes events at Imperial and beyond, to FREE live streamed Fireside Chats with experts, from reduced ticket prices for lectures for you and your guests - see your exclusive event formats below.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES EVENTS
We organise exclusive visits for Members to go behind the scenes in laboratories and research institutes at Imperial College London.
Dyson Robotics Centre, Centre for Blast Injuries, Energy Futures Lab and the Institute for Mathematical Sciences are just a few of the departments we have been to so far. More will be available in our programme of events over the 2024-25 academic year.
VISITS TO FACILITIES BEYOND THE COLLEGE
Exclusively for Members, visits are hosted by Imperial alumni at external facilities.
Examples of events have included the Diamond Light Particle Accelerator, Harwell Innovation Campus in Oxford, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Orion Laser, Bletchley Park, and JET Tokamak. There will be many opportunities to book other visits in the programme of events over the 2024-25 academic year.
SCIENCE TOURS
Every year, Friends conduct special science tours abroad for small groups of Members to places of scientific interest.
Science tours in the past have included the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, the European Space Agency in Darmstadt and the Gravitational Wave Observatory in Pisa - as well as explanations about how the leaning tower was stabilised. Each group is greeted and hosted by an Imperial expert at the facilities.
FIRESIDE CHATS
Live streamed Fireside Chats with Imperial experts are often held on the occasional Friday afternoon @ 4pm, featuring more of a short presentation or talk, an informal chat and Q&A with the audience. They are exclusively for Members and their guests - and FREE!
Check out previous chats featured on the Event Archive page. To view the recordings from previous episodes and see which leading figures starred in our first two seasons, click through to the Event recordings page.
