December 2011

Social Media Lunch

Monday 5th December, 12-2pm, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London

Martin Poulter from Wikimedia will be coming along to talk about the recent Wikipedia training for IOP members and Tom Wells from DBIS will be talking about their new online media group for science website , which will collect a series of case studies exploring how different people and organisations use online media as they communicate science to a range of audiences.

If you would like to know more please contact Lena Weber at IOP. 

Social Mobility Foundation Employer Receptions 

Throughout December, the Social Mobility Foundation will be hosting a series of receptions in regional cities: Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham: 

1st December: Manchester Reception with Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP from 6 – 7.30pm at Weightmans, First Floor, 3 Piccadilly Place, Manchester M1 3BN 

2nd December: Leeds Reception from 8.30 – 10am at Pinsent Masons, 1 Park Row, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 5AB 

2nd December: Birmingham Reception with Trevor Phillips OBE from 4 – 5.30pm at Pinsent Masons LLP, 3 Colmore Circus, Birmingham, B4 6BH 

The Social Mobility Foundation is a charity which aims to help high-achieving young people from low-income backgrounds enter universities and professions. We begin working with young people in sixth-form and support them throughout their university years with a programme of mentoring, internships, university application support and skills development. 

Of 650 young people on this year’s cohort, over 85% have a household income of less than £21,000 – often significantly so – and over 80% have parents who did not go to university. In the last 5 years, 53% of participant respondents have gone to Russell Group universities, the rest going to other excellent universities. 

We are currently supported by well over 200 employers, including Deloitte, Accenture, Barclays, Clifford Chance, Centrica, Linklaters, Credit Suisse, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Scottish & Southern Energy, in addition to a number of large hospitals and a significant number of MPs, including the three main party leaders. 

We are very keen to support more young people in these cities and to do this, we need the help of committed employers. If you would be able to offer mentors or short work-tasters (1-2 weeks) for 16-17 year olds in one of our target sectors – Accountancy, Architecture, Banking/finance, Business, Engineering, Law, Media, Medicine, Politics, Science and Technology – we’d be delighted for you to join us so we can tell you more about how we could work together. 

For more information about the events please download the relevant document: Manchester (pdf 194KB), Leeds (pdf 194KB) or Birmingham (pdf 194 KB).

RSVP to Fiona McCourt.