The Royal Institution (RI) is the oldest independent research body in the world and has played a startling part in the progress of global science for over 200 years.

The palatial exterior of the Royal Institution in central London (photograph by Mike Peel)

It was here, for instance, that the young Michael Faraday came to watch the great scientist Humphry Davy lecture, where William Henry Bragg created the world’s leading x-ray laboratory, and where Professor Quentin Pankhurst continues to do groundbreaking research in nanotechnology.

It is housed in a palatial, Grade I-listed building in central London, which also contains a public museum, the fascinating Faraday Museum. Here visitors can learn more about the discoveries made at the Royal Institution, experimenting with objects built by RI members and actually seeing Faraday’s laboratory as it was in 1850.

It focuses on the people behind the inventions, offering a look at some of the great individuals (many of whom are Nobel Prize winners) that have made the RI what it is today.

The RI is also home to several cafes, restaurants and temporary exhibition spaces, as well as auditoriums where the annual Christmas Lectures, founded in 1825 are held.

Photograph by Mike Peel (http://www.mikepeel.net)