Wellcome Connecting Science

Wellcome Connecting Science is the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s learning, training and engagement programme. Our goal is to enable everyone to explore genomic science and its impact on research, health and society. We are part of the same organisational family as the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and funded by Wellcome, one of the largest funders of global health research in the world.

Our focus is on learning, training and engagement with genomics. Drawing on the ground-breaking research taking place on the Wellcome Genome Campus, Connecting Science inspires new thinking, sparks conversation, supports learning, and understands global attitudes and perspectives. We connect researchers, health professionals and the wider public, creating opportunities and spaces to explore genomic science and its relationship with people, and the world around us. Hinxton Hall Conference is a key element of our programme, providing the venue where we host many of our learning and training activities.

Our Learning and Training offer spans from discovery research based on genomic technologies, to the application of genomics in healthcare and public health. Connecting Science combines expertise and experience in educational development and event delivery, with the specialist knowledge of colleagues from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and from across the globe. Together, we create potentially career-defining events and activities, to enable learners to explore the latest genomic tools, technologies, and applications. Our programme ranges from immersive, multi-day conferences and training courses on the Campus, to introductory, online learning, and focussed, hands-on courses in regional hubs across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Connecting Science’s work across Engagement and Society uses research and engagement approaches to investigate the impact of science, ethics, and genomic technologies on people, on both a local and a global scale. We listen, gather, and share insights on public attitudes and experiences; and we create equitable programmes, projects and resources that facilitate accessible engagement and dynamic learning. We use our insights and understanding to support a diverse range of intersecting communities, including young people, learners, educators, researchers, patients, and the public, to discover how genomic science is relevant to all our lives. If you’d like to explore more about genomics, our online resource YourGenome.org is a great place to start.

Within Programme and Strategy we create both the strategic and operational framework that supports the successful delivery of Connecting Science’s key mission and goals. As part of articulating our strategic vision, we capture impact and evaluation, produce programme wide communications, support diversity and inclusion, and work on large-scale projects around funding, review, and governance. Hinxton Hall Conference Centre sits within this area as a significant piece of infrastructure that underpins the delivery of events and other activities across our programme.