STEM Workshops in Oxford

Oxford has a long history of contributions to science, technology, and engineering. Robert Boyle conducted his pioneering experiments on gas properties in Oxford in the 1650s and 1660s, working with Robert Hooke to build the vacuum pump that enabled Boyle's Law. In the modern era, Oxford Instruments, the university's first spin-out company founded in 1959, built the first whole-body MRI scanner in 1980, transforming medical diagnostics worldwide. William Morris (later Lord Nuffield) began building cars in Oxford in 1913, establishing the Morris Motors works at Cowley.

Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke laid foundations of modern chemistry and physics in seventeenth-century Oxford. Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain carried out the crucial work at Oxford's Sir William Dunn School of Pathology that turned penicillin into a usable drug, earning the 1945 Nobel Prize. Dorothy Hodgkin, who studied at Oxford and returned there for most of her research career, won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determining the structures of penicillin and vitamin B12 using X-ray crystallography, and remains the only British woman to have won a Nobel Prize in science. Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert led the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Jenner Institute, supplied to countries worldwide.

Oxford today has a broad and active science and technology sector. Oxford Nanopore Technologies has developed portable, real-time DNA sequencing technology used in genomics and healthcare worldwide. The BMW MINI plant at Cowley continues the city's automotive manufacturing tradition. The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus nearby hosts the Diamond Light Source synchrotron and the UK Space Agency headquarters. The Oxford Science Park is home to a cluster of technology and life sciences companies.

Oxford and its surrounding area offer a wide range of STEM career pathways. The university's spin-out ecosystem creates opportunities in life sciences, AI, quantum computing, and medical technology, with companies like Oxford Nanopore and Immunocore offering graduate roles. The BMW MINI plant provides apprenticeships in automotive engineering. The Harwell Campus offers pathways into space science, particle physics, and energy research.