Diamond Annual Review 2023/24

76 D I A M O N D L I G H T S O U R C E A N N U A L R E V I E W 2 0 2 3 / 2 4 Engagingwith Diamond Light Source Impact, Corporate Communications and Engagement Team T his year proved another successful period for engagement at Diamond. With the funding for Diamond-II now secured, our engagement efforts have been focussed on preparing our students and programming for the changes ahead at Diamond– fromnewrecruitment to the dark period – and exploring the future potential in our science. During the 2023-24 period, Diamond has had approximately 7,638 significant interactions i with visitors. These include 3,515 for scientific and technical events – a significant increase from 2,890 in the previous year – with over 1,000 PhD students amongst them. In addition, we welcomed 1,448 school pupils/students, 1,391 members of the public and 540 high level and VIP visitors. We have also continued our efforts tomaking Diamond accessible to a wide range of audiences, continuing to offer hybrid or virtual efforts wherever possible. i Significant interaction is defined as a talk tour or meeting of 30+ minutes, typically longer. Building on the success of developing the core programme to include both in- person and virtual events post-pandemic, the Public Engagement team’s focus this year has been on increasing the accessibility of Diamond to all audiences, which is an ongoing task aligned with the wider Communications strategy. We have therefore continued to work with our existing partners such as STFC and Science Oxford, to reach both new and larger audiences, especially those from areas with low science capital or high levels of socio-economic deprivation. Core programme activities included three schools and three general public open days, 27 undergraduate/postgraduate visits and four partnership events. The event was engaging and informative. Our tour guideswere really passionate about theirwork at Diamond and it was great to learn about their expertise. Public Inside Diamond open day attendee, October 2023. In July 2023, we were delighted to once again run a Schools/College Work Experience week for students in years 10-13. We received a record number of applications, 600 in total, and we welcomed 46 students across 23 projects, continuing the impressive number of projects and students set in the previous year for Diamond’s Work Experience Academy programme. Projects spanned all divisions of Diamond, from mechanical engineering to electron structure, and the impact of this programme is clear to see from the feedback received from the students. Fig. 1: Participants from the Work Experience Academy programme.