The Festival of Tomorrow has partnered with the Science Museum Group Science and Innovation Park to launch the Hawking Building Series. The programme will offer behind the scenes access to a working research and storage facility normally closed to visitors.
Four evening events will take place inside the Hawking Building, aimed at adults and older teenagers with an interest in how science and technology affect everyday life. Each session will be streamed online, with a limited number of tickets available for in person attendance.
Those attending in person will be seated inside a building that houses more than 300,000 objects from the national science collection. The collection includes historic vehicles, medical equipment and artefacts linked to space exploration.
Each event will feature expert talks and panel discussions, alongside live links to laboratories and researchers around the UK. Audiences will also be connected after hours to the Science Museum in London, offering real time access to spaces rarely opened to the public.
People with tickets to attend at Wroughton will also be able to book onto guided tours of the Science Museum Group collections. These tours will take place after each event and will be linked to the theme of the evening.
The programme covers a wide range of topics, including the future of lab grown meat, NASA’s Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon, how robots could soon become part of home life, and how Eurovision has influenced global broadcast technology.
Dr Roderick Hebden, Director of the Festival of Tomorrow, said the partnership highlights the scale of science based in Swindon.
“The Science and Innovation Park is a truly unique facility, right on our doorstep in Swindon, and we’re incredibly privileged to be able to bring this opportunity to people in Swindon, as well as audiences online,” he said.
Matt Moore, Director of the Science and Innovation Park, said the events were about opening science up to the public.
“We’re excited to be working even closer with the Festival of Tomorrow this year, both by opening up the Hawking Building to the public for these events, as well as running our own shows and workshops as part of the hugely successful Festival of Tomorrow schools programme,” he said.
The Hawking Building is one of the Science Museum Group’s most important facilities. It is designed to preserve nationally significant objects to museum grade standards while supporting ongoing research.
The Hawking Building Series will run alongside the first Festival of Tomorrow events now available to book. These include a comedy night with Robin Ince in Old Town, a Star Hop at Lydiard House, nature themed events with the Western Forest, and a debate on surveillance and disease tracking hosted by the University of Oxford Pandemic Sciences Institute and the History of Science Museum.
Organisers say the series is a reminder that world class science is not confined to major cities. For a handful of evenings this winter, it will be taking place just outside Swindon, with the public invited inside.
