One week, three events and hundreds of people wowed by Diamond

At any event Diamond’s Public Engagement team host or attend, the public always come with inquisitive questions: How big is the synchrotron? How do I become a scientist? What would happen if someone walked through the beam? But a few weeks ago, the Public Engagement team set about answering our own question; how many people can we get excited about Diamond in less than a week? 

Well, with the support of many enthusiastic staff volunteers, in a matter of days we welcomed over 530 visitors to Diamond as part of our two open days and engaged with many young families as part of STFC’s Talking Science event. Here is our diary of our bumper week of engagement! 

If you have ever seen the Disney Pixar movie A Bug’s Life, you will know that bugs are cool. But no one has ever made them look as cool as Dr Emma Long from the Natural History Museum, a researcher of prehistoric worms and a user of Diamond. As the main speaker for this instalment of Talking Science, an event for young families run by STFC in school holidays, Emma took the children through her research on Yuti the prehistoric worm in her talk, A Bug’s Life at Diamond. It is safe to say it was a hit with both the children and parents.

With this tough act to follow, Diamond’s Public Engagement team set up in the STFC Visitor Centre alongside other facilities from across RAL, for some hands-on activities for the stream of visitors to dig their mandibles into.  

Inspired by Emma’s talk, many children opted to draw butterflies, bees and bugs on their very own sample stations as part of our Make Your Own Beamline activity. This helped to spark the idea that they too could come to Diamond to perform their own experiments in the future.  

Bright and early the following day, 277 members of the public made their way to Diamond, where talks, tour guides, and beamlines were ready and waiting to welcome them when the doors to Diamond were flung open.

Visitors flowed in and out across the four sessions of the day, asking their burning questions from “what is the largest thing you have put in the beam?” to “how did you learn so much?”. The latter question was from a wonderful six-year-old (picured on the right) whose parents have since informed us is “designing an experiment to submit to the panel. But don’t worry - he’s happy to share his data through the academic route!”.   

In addition to their talk and tour, visitors were treated to additional activities in the atrium for them to explore. Diamond volunteers showcased magnet models, vacuum demos and synchrotron bracelet making, whilst Diamond users from the Natural History Museum brought along meteorite samples and our neighbours from STFC had some fossils to hold! No open day is complete without cake, this time provided by a local charity, The League of Friends, who made £500 from the event. 

This event welcomed the largest number of visitors Diamond has hosted at one of our open days since restarting them after the pandemic. The feedback we received was glowing and reflected the atmosphere of enjoyment and curiosity that was in abundance on the day.  

After a brief rest and time to pack up from the Public Open Day, the students arrived! Over 250 visitors from GCSE and A-Level classes across the country hopped into their minibuses and found their way to Diamond. Many of the schools left us wonderful feedback on their visit specifically highlighting how great it was to have tours of the facility led by the staff who work there.  

The students were given a great insight into the full range of STEM careers and opportunities available to them via a talk from the Public Engagement team, and tours from our excellent volunteers from across Diamond, and left feeling inspired to return to Diamond one day as a future employee or user.

With this bumper week for the Public Engagement team now complete, we are looking forward to upcoming events including our annual Work Experience week.  This year we will be welcoming 56 students to work at Diamond on projects across all areas of the organisation from being on a beamline, to in a lab, to joining the legal team.

If you are interested in getting involved in future Public Engagement activities, tours or events please keep an eye out for our regular upcoming opportunities emails and sign up to our mailing list. 

The ballot for our Public Inside Diamond Open Day on Saturday 25th October 2025 is now OPEN.

APPLY HERE