STEM Workshops in Eastbourne

Eastbourne's corner of East Sussex hosted one of Britain's great scientific institutions. When light pollution made serious astronomy impossible in London, the Royal Greenwich Observatory relocated to Herstmonceux, near Hailsham, a short drive from Eastbourne, and its astronomers worked there for more than three decades until the observatory moved to Cambridge in 1990. The Isaac Newton Telescope, inaugurated at Herstmonceux by Queen Elizabeth II in 1967, was then the largest telescope in the British Isles. The domes and working historic telescopes survive as the Observatory Science Centre, opened in 1995, which still runs telescope tours, science shows and stargazing events for families and school groups.

Two Nobel laureates were born in Eastbourne. Frederick Soddy, born in the town in 1877, worked alongside Ernest Rutherford to explain radioactive decay and established the concept of isotopes, earning the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Frederick Gowland Hopkins, born in Eastbourne in 1861, discovered the amino acid tryptophan and showed that animals cannot thrive on protein, fat and carbohydrate alone; the accessory food factors he identified became known as vitamins, and the work earned him a share of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Two Nobel Prizes, in chemistry and in physiology or medicine, both born of the same seaside town.

Eastbourne's economy is no longer just tourism and retail. Gardners, one of the UK's largest book wholesalers, runs a national operation from a 350,000 square foot Eastbourne site where automated crane and conveyor systems pick from more than 500,000 product lines for same-day dispatch. The town's digital sector, championed since 2020 by the business collective Chalk Eastbourne, has since grown around the Eastbourne DigiFest conference and community, with local software firms such as Switchplane building that momentum. TechResort, a community interest company based at Eastbourne Town Hall, gives 8 to 18 year olds a place to code, make and experiment, plus digital skills sessions across East Sussex.

A young person in Eastbourne can follow a STEM route without leaving East Sussex. East Sussex College's Eastbourne campus offers A Levels, vocational courses and T Levels. TechResort runs coding clubs and offers work experience to local teenagers, a bridge between school and the town's digital firms. The software companies connected through Eastbourne DigiFest are hiring as the sector grows, while large employers such as Gardners offer routes into logistics and warehouse automation. And the working historic telescopes at Herstmonceux remain a short trip up the road.