The CHRISTMAS LECTURES are a series of science talks, which have been held at the Royal Institution (Ri) since 1825. In December 2013, the Royal Institution teamed up with us to extend the discussion around the CHRISTMAS LECTURES, and give everyone the opportunity to ask questions to real scientists online.

This was the first time we ran an I’m a Scientist zone alongside the CHRISTMAS LECTURES, so evaluating it was particularly important: we wanted to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the event and suggest improvements for future editions.

These were our main findings:

• Almost 600 people participated in the CHRISTMAS LECTURES Zone, of whom 78% were students, 8% were teachers, and 14% were members of the general public.
• All of the teachers that answered our feedback survey agreed that we should run the CHRISTMAS LECTURES Zone next year.
• The two scientists who we interviewed after the event said that they now feel much more confident in science communication and they would recommend taking part in I’m a Scientist to their colleagues.
• There is room for improvement, particularly regarding the participation of the general public, which we would like to see increase in future events.

If you are curious to know more about the event, you can access the full evaluation report here (PDF).