Review of UCL/UCLH Public Cancer Research Open Day

UCL ECMC co-ordinated the organisation and led the steering committee meetings for the UCL/UCLH Public Cancer Research Open Day which was held on Saturday 23rd April 2016. In total 95 members of public attended the event with almost 50 chaperons and volunteers helping out on the day. During the morning session there was a series of talks on patient and public involvement, and also clinical research including cancer drug development, immunotherapy and biomarkers.

In the afternoon the attendees were able to visit the NIHR Clinical Research Facility, the UCL Cancer Institute and the Macmillan Cancer Centre where they had the opportunity to engage in a number of hands-on activities or listen to staff explain the cutting edge research ongoing at UCL/UCLH.  

Overall 77% provided formal written feedback which was overwhelmingly positive:

• >90% strongly agreed/ agreed that the event improved their knowledge about UCL’s cancer research.
• >90% strongly agreed/agreed that the afternoon tours of the facilities were easy to understand, interactive and inspiring. 
• All the speakers were very highly rated for their talks and there were numerous positive comments about how inspirational the talks were.