Professor Sir Robin Grimes joined Imperial in 1995 and led schools outreach in the Department of Materials. A computational modeller in nuclear science, he was told by senior colleagues that his outreach work was not a good use of time and would hinder his career. Undeterred, Robin created a weekly schools programme and delivered inspiring demonstrations to primary school pupils alongside his research. He went on to become the Chief Scientific Advisor in both the UK Government Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence where his outreach work not only continued, but formed an important aspect of his international science diplomacy. This contributed to him being knighted in the 2022 New Year Honours.

At the start of Robin’s career, nuclear science had a poor public reputation with a legacy of mistrust due to high-profile incidents and a reluctance of the nuclear community to engage the public, in part for fear of being misrepresented. “It was a tremendous mistake of those working in nuclear to hide the risks and not communicate their work,” Robin says. It was this backdrop that shaped Robin’s commitment to engage wider audiences with science, so when he joined the Royal Institution (RI) in 1990, it was a perfect fit.

“The RI is all about children’s demonstrations, so I found myself involved very quickly in the schools lectures and I was very lucky to be surrounded by people who were fabulous lecturers.” Robin would sit in on some of these talks, learning what works, what doesn’t and seeing how to engage with children and adapt when things don’t go according to plan.

“The first lecture I gave was called ‘How we measure our world’ for a group of 8-9 year-olds,” says Robin. “At one point in the lecture, I got all the children to stand at the front in a row as part of a demonstration. I said, ‘Thank you very much – you can all sit down now.’ and they did, right there on the floor cross-legged. Of course, I meant for them to go back to their seats so I had to think on my feet and I made it part of the demonstration. I was ready for this sort of thing because I’d seen my colleagues handle similar unanticipated situations.

“At the RI, even the Director gave lectures to primary school kids. It sent a powerful message: no matter your seniority, inspiring the next generation is part of the job. There was this camaraderie and willingness to share capability and understanding. So that's really how I got my start.”

The RI was a valuable place for Robin to hone his skills in engaging a range of audiences and over time he picked up props and items that he used in his demonstrations. These sat in a dedicated trunk which, along with his outreach ethos, followed him to Imperial and around the globe.

When Robin joined Imperial's Department of Materials in 1995, David Phillips and Mel Thody were already at Imperial and were familiar faces from the RI. “So naturally I could jump straight back into doing these sorts of lectures,” Robin says.

It wasn’t long before Robin became an Admissions Tutor, and his outreach approach strongly influenced how the materials department engaged prospective students. “We organised Wednesday afternoon sessions where local school pupils could come in, break bits of metal, look down microscopes, and perform experiments they couldn’t do at school,” he says. “It wasn’t just about showcasing Imperial—it was about giving them experiences that counted as practicals for their A-level curriculum.”

This hands-on approach yielded great results. “Every year, two or three students from those sessions would join our undergraduate programme. These were motivated, talented students, often from local or underrepresented backgrounds. They were gold dust. Some also went on to other materials departments around the country so other colleagues benefitted too."

Robin’s outreach work soon crossed borders when he was invited to Hong Kong by the British Council in 1999 to deliver workshops in schools to 2,300 pupils. And later, as Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Foreign Office, he saw first-hand how international science outreach could foster diplomatic ties. “Outreach is an incredibly effective form of soft power,” he explains. “I’d do science lectures in countries like Thailand, Argentina, and South Africa. In South Africa, after one lecture for school children, their Minister of Science agreed to a major collaboration because, in her words, ‘You came all this way to inspire our kids - we should show the same commitment.’”

Despite his success, Robin faced challenges from within academia. “In the early days, some colleagues told me I was wasting my time. They said I should focus on writing papers.” But Robin never wavered. “I knew the impact outreach had - not just on the students, but on the perception of Imperial as an institution that cared. Plus, I enjoyed the theatre of it! Today, attitudes have shifted. Outreach and engagement are a valued part of academic life.”

Reflecting on his career, some of Robin’s proudest moments come from the students he’s engaged through outreach. “A few years ago, a former student came back to Imperial with his wife and baby. He told me, ‘You gave me a chance to come here, and without that, these two people wouldn’t be in my life.’ Moments like that remind me why this work matters and the responsibility we all have to one another.”

Minna Ruohonen joined Imperial’s Outreach team in 2002 as the university’s first Community Engagement Manager. She had a vision to connect Imperial’s students with the local community and build bridges between university life and the world beyond campus.

“Universities back then weren’t thinking about engagement in a structured way. The idea of universities having a civic mission was only just starting to be discussed across the sector. At Imperial, community engagement work was essentially student volunteering. It was run through the students’ union and was mostly ad hoc so I wanted to think about how we could do student volunteering more strategically and try to make a difference where the need was greatest.” Minna set about creating the Imperial Volunteer Centre and began shaping a programme that would match students with meaningful opportunities across North and West London.”

“It was just me, with some occasional temp support, and my job was to get Imperial and the students’ union to work together on this. That wasn’t always the norm back then.” Her role was to connect student energy with Imperial's resources to kickstart a new era of volunteering. “I was given free rein to experiment. I could try anything and take risks. That freedom was invaluable.”

Minna was committed to making a real impact, and that meant venturing beyond the campus. “I’d go out, talk to local groups, and see where Imperial could help. I met a small group in North Kensington that would later become IntoUniversity - a national charity that helps young people with social mobility.” It was partnerships like these that made her feel she was on the right path. “There was this energy, this sense that we were building something lasting.”

A special project Minna took under her wing was the Pimlico Connection, Imperial’s student tutoring programme, which had been running since 1975. “It had gone a bit quiet and needed some TLC, so I promoted it alongside our other volunteering opportunities. We used a hard-copy magazine, posters, email newsletters - really old school! I even went to departments, clubs, and societies to spread the word. It was all about getting out there.”

Over time, her work led to thousands of students engaging with over 400 organisations each year and even won awards. Indeed, a 2010 article announcing its closure in the student newspaper Felix described it as a key part of the Imperial student experience. But the numbers were only part of the story. “At the time, it was all statistics. How many students volunteered and with how many organisations,” she explains. “But for me, it was always about the stories - the lives changed, the connections made. And eventually, that became the norm. We started asking, ‘What difference does this make, both for students and for the community?’”

Seeing the positive impact of student volunteering, Minna was keen to expand Imperial’s community engagement work to include staff volunteering. As part of this, she launched an awards scheme that recognises staff who engage with wider communities. Awards of this nature - the Societal Engagement Awards - continue to this day. “Staff volunteering was harder to implement. People giving up 1-2 days per year can make a huge difference to community groups, but it wasn’t something that the university leadership was initially supportive of. We got a small scheme up and running but it never had the scale of student volunteering.”

Minna’s work evolved from student-focused volunteering to wider civic engagement, especially as Imperial prepared to open its White City campus. “White City was a new chapter,” she says. “I remember meeting with local resident associations, explaining that Imperial wasn’t here to be isolated, but to open up and be part of the community.” She worked with groups like West London Zone (now AllChild), which supports young people from early childhood to young adulthood, giving families and their support networks access to educational programmes. To this day, Imperial still has strong links with the charity - the current Community Engagement Manager previously worked there. “These are the partnerships that bring real, long-term change,” Minna emphasises. “It’s not just about our students gaining skills - it’s about building connections that matter.”

Looking back on her time at Imperial, Minna speaks warmly of the team spirit and the sense of purpose that drove her work. “It felt like a family. The whole Outreach team was small, maybe six or seven of us, and we were all working towards this shared goal - making Imperial open, relevant, and connected to the world outside. Our volunteers were fantastic too and seeing them grow through these experiences was incredibly rewarding. They weren’t just ticking boxes. They were reflecting on what they were learning, and you could see how it prepared them for their careers.”

Now working at Royal Holloway after stints at UCL and Queen Mary, Minna still treasures the atmosphere at Imperial. “Imperial was special, and I feel so lucky to have been part of it.” For Minna, the journey has come full circle, but the impact of her work lives on - both in the programmes she helped create and in the lives of those she touched.

Dr Melanie Bottrill is the Head of Programmes in the Outreach team. She is also an Imperial alumnus. Mel joined the Outreach team in 2011 and has developed many of the hands-on STEM activities run by the Outreach team today from the Summer Schools to programmes in the Wohl Reach Out Lab – one of two spaces at Imperial dedicated to outreach activities. Now she oversees all of Imperial’s Outreach programmes and her unwavering commitment to young people and social mobility has positioned Imperial as sector-leading when it comes to outreach.

Mel’s Imperial journey started as a student from the Midlands moving to London aged 18 to study chemistry. “My mum left school at 14 and my dad left school at 16 so when it came to university, I didn’t have much guidance,” she says. “I’d never been to London but I remember thinking it was the coolest place in the world, so I put Imperial as my first choice. I remember being dropped off at halls of residence and being stunned – I thought it looked like something out of Hogwarts.”

Mel went on to complete a PhD in Chemistry where she started getting involved in lab demonstrations for schools. “I really enjoyed communicating science, so I started volunteering for more events and I just got the bug. I really loved working with young people,” she says. In 2011, she joined Imperial’s Outreach team, then just seven people. At this time, cuts across the university had impacted the outreach team with the closure of the Imperial Volunteer Centre in 2010. “When I first started, I wasn’t sure my role would exist for more than a year – I don’t think the work we were doing was widely understood.”

Things began to change when university tuition fees were increased in 2012. With this came further requirements for universities to commit to widening access to higher education as a strategic priority. “It meant that our outreach programmes, perhaps previously perceived as frivolous or ‘nice to have’, became a ‘need to have’” says Mel.

Additional funding was allocated, with much of it going towards bursaries. “But it was clear that many students receiving bursaries were already set on going to university, so the bursaries alone, whilst valuable, weren’t actually widening participation that much. We needed programmes that targeted potential students earlier on, so more funding was allocated to that and this meant growing the team.”

The Outreach team is now made up of around 30 staff delivering 24 programmes every year to over 3,000 school children aged 8-18. It’s a huge achievement but to Mel, there is always more that can be done. “How much we can practically do doesn’t meet the scale of demand. The young people we work with are incredibly aspirational and our programmes are over-subscribed. While I want us to be able to do more, I also want us to focus on being the best we can be to those who really need us.”

Historically, much of the Outreach team’s activities have been open to everyone, “but now we are focussed on our eligibilty criteria,” says Mel. “So we prioritise working with schools in areas of high deprivation, that have a high proportion of students receiving free school meals or have low attainment. We also consider socioeconomic disadvantage as well as underrepresented characteristics. The more of those criteria a young person meets, the more likely they are to be accepted into our outreach programmes.”

Over her 13 years working in the Outreach team, Mel has achieved enormous successes. But her biggest could be the development of the Makerspace, a dedicated Outreach space on Imperial’s White City Campus. Mel’s experience of managing the Wohl Reach Out Lab in South Kensington campus meant she was able to shape the space from scratch, down to the floorplan, furniture, equipment and staffing.

“It made me really proud that Imperial was so forward-thinking about how we do engagement,” she says. “At that time there weren’t many universities that had any dedicated engagement spaces, let alone two. To see all those ideas come to life is incredible. It was hard work but a huge achievement for me.”

Imperial’s Outreach work aims to help young people make informed decisions about their future, but Mel feels that negative narratives around higher education in the wider public sphere hinder those efforts. “There is a notion getting pushed, in the media and from some politicians, that too many people are going to university. Often the people saying this are people who themselves have benefitted from a university education. So who are they saying shouldn’t be going?” says Mel.

“By limiting how we view higher education and the opportunity it brings, we are doing a disservice to those who would most benefit. I come from a working-class background and university was transformative for me. There are many ways to find success in life but messaging that veils the benefits of university is making it harder for young people to cut through the noise and make decisions that feel true to them.”

For Mel, what motivates her is seeing the impact that Imperial’s outreach has on young people. “There are moments that remind you why you do what you do,” she says. “For me, it’s seeing people who have come through our programmes as school pupils, get into Imperial and become student ambassadors to support young people like them. It’s the full circle moments.”