Diamond Annual Review 2023/24

78 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 Gold Award; the Ministry of Defence’s highest badge of honour in recognition of supporting the Armed Forces Community. In 2023, Diamond also began the planning for the biggest public engagement activity in eight years – the large-scale Harwell Open Week, which took place in July 2024. The week aimed to bring visitors to the Harwell to share the incredible work (and its impact) undertaken on sitewith our diverse communities, to engage and involve under-served communities and enable participants to feel that “science and technology are for people likeme”. Higher education engagement Our work with students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level continues to play a vital role in Diamond’s wider mission to be a world-leading centre for synchrotron science and to keep the UK at the forefront of scientific research. Our student-dedicated programmes aim to welcome and harness the talent, curiosity and development of students both at undergraduate and postgraduate level​ and provide them with exciting opportunities to encourage and nurture a career in STEM, ultimately contributing to the wider skills agenda in the UK. In 2023, 22 joint-PhD students joined Diamond as part of our 2023 PhD cohort. These doctoral projects are linked with 18 universities and other world -leading facilities. This brings the total number of active Diamond PhD Studentships to 110. In order to streamline processes internally, this year we limited the open call for PhD proposals within Diamond to one to two projects per science group, therefore we received 21 submissions for our 2024 Diamond Doctoral Studentship call for proposals, which were linked with 20 different universities and institutions. Following the internal review process, in October 2024 we will be welcoming 17 students from the open call, plus four students funded by the Ada Lovelace Centre, three students in collaboration with the University of Oxford and 1 funded by the Royal Thai Embassy. The 2022 Year in Industry cohort finished their placements in September, and gave their final poster session and presentations in person, giving wider Diamond staff the opportunity to gain insight into their research, challenges they faced, and results they achieved during their 12-month placement. We were pleased to welcome 12 new Year in Industry students as part of the 2023 cohort intake in September. Since starting, the cohort have been busy progressing their projects, completing various training including public engagement and presentation skills, as well as getting involved with wider outreach activities. In June 2023, we welcomed 12 Summer Placement students. The projects spanned life and physical sciences, engineering and software computing. After a summer of work experience, training and networking, the students presented their results to staff via a poster event in the Atrium and end of project presentations. The experience and work skills I gained were invaluable, my supervisors were helpful and encouraging, and I got somany opportunities and so much inspiration for the future. The other students also helped create a wonderful working environment 2023 Summer Placement Student From L to R: (Front Row) CEOs Dr Peter Thompson (NPL) and Prof. Gianluigi Botton (Diamond), and (Second Row) Dr Richard Burguete Postgraduate Institute Director (NPL), Dr JT Janssen, Chief Scientist (NPL), Isabelle Boscaro-Clark, Head of Impact, Communications and Engagement (Diamond), Dr Adrian Mancuso, Physical Sciences Director (Diamond), and Prof. Sir Dave Stuart FRS, Life Sciences Director (Diamond).