The annual CDT Festival of Science and Engineering took place on 23rd April 2015, with the theme of “Criticism & Science”. The event took place in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building at Imperial College. The festival organising committee was composed of students from 10 different CDTs: Theory and Simulation of Materials, Controlled Quantum Dynamics, Sustainable Civil Engineering, Center for Neurotechnolgy, Centre for Plastic Electronics, Institute of Chemical Biology, Advanced Charaterisation of Materials, High Performance Embedded and Distributed Systems, Mathematics of Planet Earth and Fluid Dynamics across Scales. The event was a great opportunity for them to join together with people from other fields of research and to experience fully managing and organising a day full of events.
This year’s festival focused on the theme of “Criticism & Science”, featuring speakers from a number of disciplines and positions from both within and outside of academia. Invited speakers included: Prof Gerry Thomas (Imperial College London, senior), Prof David Spiegelhalter (University of Cambridge, host of the BBC Four documentary Tails You Win: The Science of Chance and more recently Climate by Numbers), Marianne Talbot (Oxford University, Director of Studies Department for Continuing Education), Dr Alice Bell (Imperial College London, a freelance writer and researcher, specialising in the politics of science and technology) and Dr Simon Singh(BBC, a science writer and broadcaster). Each talk throughout the day brought a fresh perspective on the importance of criticism as a tool for ethical research and was enjoyed by everyone who attended. This year Festival had, in addition to the speakers, a photo competition on some criticism-related activities.
