Over a dozen SGR members, including Secretary Dr Charalampos Tsoumpas and Sponsor Prof David Webb are among the signatories of a letter to The Guardian newspaper protesting about arms industry sponsorship of the The Big Bang science fair.

12 March 2014
 

The Big Bang fair is the UK's leading science and engineering event for young people, and one of its lead sponsors is Europe's largest arms corporation, BAE Systems. Other sponsors from the arms industry include Rolls-Royce, Thales, Selex ES, Doosan, and Airbus. All of these companies have a track record of exporting equipment to countries with poor human rights records. Doosan is involved in cluster bomb manufacture. BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce are key contractors in the development of the UK's new nuclear-armed submarines.

The full text of the letter and a list of over 100 signatories as published on The Guardian website:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/arms-firms-big-bang-fair

The full list of signatories is published on the Science Unstained website (as some signatories were left off the list on The Guardian website by mistake):
http://www.scienceunstained.co.uk/wordpress/?p=179

The full list of sponsors of The Big Bang fair:
http://www.thebigbangfair.co.uk/Sponsors/

SGR also published a critical article about The Big Bang fair to coincide with last year's event:
/resources/big-bang-fair-distorted-view-value-science