Somerset House Trust

Making for a better future

This winter Somerset House celebrates 10 years of Makerversity, a pioneering community of makers, creators and innovators. Makerversity members focus on driving fundamental change across the world’s most pressing challenges including climate change, health and inequality. Somerset House offers them specialist prototyping facilities, affordable workspaces and business support.

We are proud to support Somerset House with a grant of £115,304 towards the Makerversity: Designing for the real world exhibition and learning programme. This will spread awareness of the process of making and inspire the next generation of makers to change their futures and the wider world’s.

Makerversity is a community of over 300 world-leading entrepreneurs, creators and innovators.
120 young people will take part in the Makerversity workshops.
Up to 25,000 people will visit the exhibition.

Upskilling the next generation of makers

The exhibition will cover the maker’s journey from prototype, including failures, to workshop scaling to real-world application. Educational workshops for entry level young creatives aged between 16 and 21 years old will mirror the structure of the exhibition. Participants will gain skills in ideation, teamwork and portfolio presentation as well as practical experience making.

Taster days will give 16 to 18-year-olds will have the chance to work alongside professional makers. They’ll learn about career pathways and get hands-on experience with industry equipment. Eighteen to 21-year-olds will take part in week-long workshops exploring techniques such as bio-material casting, robotics and digital animation. They’ll gain skills in digital design, software, electronics, 3D modelling and printing, woodwork construction and assembly. The workshops address the need for entry-level opportunities into creative and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) fields for young people outside of traditional higher education routes. You can read about our previous grant to Somerset House here.