- December 8, 2026
- 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM
- The Gateway, Discovery Park
Category: Events
Toasted Sandwich Toastmasters
Have you ever wished you could express yourself more clearly in meetings? Speak with confidence in front of a group? Or simply feel more at ease sharing your ideas?
If so, you’re not alone — and you’re not without options.
Join us for an engaging session where we’ll explore the world of Toastmasters — a global community that’s helped millions of people become better communicators, stronger leaders, and more confident individuals.
In this session, you’ll discover:
- What really happens in a Toastmasters meeting
- How you can build skills that boost your career, enrich your relationships, and elevate your everyday conversations
- Why Toastmasters is one of the most supportive, empowering environments for personal growth
Whether you’re a seasoned speaker or someone who avoids the spotlight, this talk is for you. Come curious — leave inspired.
Reserve your free spot here.
OBN BioSeed
Owned and organised by OBN, BioSeed is a fast-paced, one-day pitching event where innovative early-stage life sciences companies seeking seed funding, showcase to and meet with an extensive audience of active life sciences investors.
BioSeed attendance is exclusively for:
- Early stage R&D companies seeking seed stage funding – all therapy and technological areas are welcome
- Technology Transfer teams from academic institutions seeking funding for their spin out companies
- Life sciences Investors looking for new funding opportunities
- A limited number of corporate and industry sponsors
Sustainability Breakfast November 2025
⏰ 08:00 – 10:00 AM
Join us for our final sustainability breakfast of the year at the Barclays Eagle Lab in Discovery Park
This free event will be an opportunity to network with likeminded businesses in the area and discuss the sustainability related issues facing the world. We’ll also hear from a range of speakers about what they’re doing in their particular industries, and what sustainable practices you can take away to address your own goals.
A light breakfast will be provided from 8:30am, featuring locally sourced food and drink.
Speaker Profiles:
Martin White: Four years ago under lockdown, and as part of his personal journey towards greater self-awareness of the environment and climate change, Martin founded his own sustainability consultancy Green Business Hub. Martin now advises a diverse range of private and public sector clients on their ESG strategy, encouraging them to think more holistically about sustainability rather than solely focusing on climate action and ‘Net Zero’ – because they have to – to include alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and increasingly ‘Social Value Add’ frameworks.
Andrew Pledger: Andrew is the Ecosystem Manager at Barclays Eagle Labs in Discovery Park. The Eagle Labs mission is to connect the UK’s entrepreneurial ecosystem through a network of business incubators, expertise and support. With access to over 325 years of business expertise and connections, Eagle Labs are a community resource available for everybody. Whether you’re an inventor, an innovator or a mentor, Eagle Labs spaces are conducive to nurturing and growing your idea with support from Barclays and the Eagle Labs network.
More speakers to be announced shortly.
Investors Event – Private
This is a private event hosted by Mewburn Ellis. Invite only. If you think you would like to attend, please email info@discovery-park.co.uk.
NIHR BioResource Drop-In
Drop-in sessions with Dr Heather Ramsay to find out more about the NIHR BioResource
The NIHR BioResource is a unique and powerful resource for studying disease mechanisms and investigating the links between genes, the environment, health and disease, and enabling scientific discoveries. We have over 330,000 consented volunteers, from the general population and patients with common and rare diseases, who have donated a blood sample, granted access to their health records and genomic data, and are willing to be recalled to participate in academic and industry-led experimental medicine and clinical research studies. Recruitment is on a national and local level, with 18 local BioResource centres across England, including Cambridge.
Find out more and book a slot here.
The Big STEM Challenge
The ultimate inter-schools competition
which is all about inspiring and engaging young minds in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM)! We’re on a mission to ignite your curiosity and creativity, and we want to see your amazing projects that showcase the best of STEM.
Whether you’ve built a robot, designed an app, conducted experiments or created something entirely unique, enter by 30th September 2025! The showcase STEM Fair will be hosted at the Discovery Park on Friday 17th October.
Find out more, book tickets, and enter your school here.
Investors + Innovators Meet Up (Biotech and MedTech)
Wednesday 15th October 2025
18.00 – 20.00
London EC4A 3AG
This event is hosted by Abel + Imray.
Our Abel + Imray Investors + Innovators Meet Up series bring people together to start creating those connections through networking over informal drinks. Each event has an innovation theme to provide a focus to attract relevant investors and innovating businesses to be ‘in the room’.
The meet up is free to attend though places are limited, and places are restricted to 2 per organisation.
Growing Kent & Medway Showcase Celebration
This event is hosted by Growing Kent & Medway.
Meet exciting plant-based food and drink businesses and hear from the innovators and researchers making our horticultural food systems more sustainable.
The event will include:
- Talks from local policy makers and funders
- Presentations on cutting-edge science and technology developments in food and farming
- Taste new food and drink products developed with support from Growing Kent & Medway
- Network with other Growing Kent & Medway members; businesses, technical research specialists, funders, and business support experts
- Tours of Niab’s research facilities, including the glasshouses, Wine Innovation Centre, research vineyards and growth rooms
- Plus, hear about the next phase of place-based innovation for our sector.
The morning will feature talks and presentations at the Orchards Event Centre, East Malling, before we move to the Mumford Building for networking, lunch and demonstration displays.
Lunch will be provided on the terrace overlooking the Niab vineyards.
Limited places are available for businesses to display their products during the networking session. Please email contact@growingkentandmedway.com if you would like to request a table.
We hope you can join us for this free event to celebrate the brilliant innovation taking place across our supply chains.
Find more information here.
CADDA at Barclays Eagle Labs Café
The Centre for Advanced Diagnostics Development and Application (CADDA) is hosting a café-style event at Barclays Eagle Labs, Sandwich, designed to connect with diagnostics companies from across the region.
CADDA is a strategic programme with funding support from Research England.
It is a national programme set to drive innovation in human and animal diagnostics. CADDA is led by the University of Kent in partnership with The University of Manchester and University College London (UCL).
This informal session is an opportunity to:
- Learn more about CADDA and the support we can offer diagnostics businesses
- Explore our Knowledge Transfer Vouchers (CKTVs)
- Discover the benefits of joining our Community of Practice (membership is free)
- Network with CADDA’s team and other diagnostics organisations
Tea and coffee will be provided, and the session is open to all organisations with an interest in advancing diagnostics.
While registration isn’t required, we kindly ask you to sign up via Eventbrite so we can tailor the session and make sure there’s enough coffee to go around.
If you’re unable to attend but would like to know more about CADDA or discuss opportunities to collaborate, please contact us at cadda@kent.ac.uk
We look forward to welcoming you to the Café and exploring how we can work together to drive diagnostics innovation.