Steve was voted the winner of the Drug Discovery Zone in November 2016. Here he writes about using his £500 prize money to create a website that helps students understand the links between school subjects and future career opportunities.

If you’d like the chance to win funding for your own public engagement work, apply for the next I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here: imascientist.org.uk/scientist-apply

My plan for the £500 prize money was to develop a careers website for secondary school students, who are making decisions about what subjects to study. This might be KS3 subjects in year 9, GCSE subjects in year 10, A-level subjects in year 12, or undergraduate degree subjects in year 13.

The website is based on real people, real careers and real research, and will be organised by school subject. Students will be able to log on and discover a wealth of potential career and research options covering all walks of life, all organised by the most relevant subject/s to the career, and based on real people, who made real decisions. Not only do students learn about what types of careers and what types of research subjects such as chemistry can lead to, they can also compare them to other subjects (such as physics for example), allowing them to make informed decisions about their future. Once they have found a subject and/or person they are interested in, they can examine that person’s profile in greater detail to see what subjects they studied at school, and get advice on how to follow in their footsteps!

The project is called FuturebySubject, and the website is now live in a basic form at www.futurebysubject.co.uk. I have many plans for future updates, and the prize money allows me to fund the website for at least the next 5 years – so this is definitely a project that will evolve! I am always looking for more contributors, so please check out the website and get in touch to submit your profile. It only takes 10 mins!