Cavendish Laboratory
Content consultancy to capture the spirit of the pioneering place of physics
Sectors: Education, Science
The client
The Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge.
Since 1874 the Cavendish has been at the forefront of scientific discovery. It’s where the electron was discovered, the atom was split, and the structure of DNA was defined. Their interdisciplinary approach and world-class teaching have shaped the future of physics and led to 31 Nobel Prize winners emerging from this one Department alone.
In 2025, a new era in physics research began, with the opening of the Cavendish’s new home – the gleaming new Ray Dolby Centre.
The £160m state-of-the-art facility offers extensive lab, teaching and collaboration space and will boost innovation in key areas such as semiconductors, quantum communications, new methods of disease detection, and large-scale energy generation and storage.
The project
A revamped web presence was needed which would reflect this future-focused vision and the spirit of the Cavendish, plus a VoiceMap audio tour taking visitors around key sites of physics discovery in Cambridge.
The services
Content consultancy, liaising with the in-house comms team and web developers
Website copywriting
Copyediting and scripting an audio tour
The numbers
45 pages of fresh copy
75-minute audio tour with up to 40 stops across two sites in Cambridge
4 insights interviews with leading scientists and key staff members
1 glossary of key terms
5 site visits
5-star reviews of the audio tour. Marked 100% for sense of place, navigation and depth of info
The challenge
The Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge is home to 450 undergraduate students, 430 postgraduates, 160 postdoctoral researchers and 60 academic staff. Relaunching the accompanying website is a sizeable task.
With the Ray Dolby Centre nearing completion, the rebrand delivered by Modern Designers, and web development in progress from Chameleon Studios (who have a great track record in web design for the University of Cambridge) the internal comms team needed support from a copywriter who could craft fresh content for the site to match the uplifting spirit of the Department’s new home.
During the project a side quest emerged; to write the script for a new VoiceMap audio tour of the key sites of physics discoveries in Cambridge. The initial script had already been written, but with multiple rounds of reviews and comments from the scientists and experts it needed knocking into shape.
The time felt right to pass it to an external copywriter to review the copy with fresh eyes, ensure continuity, and who had a strong awareness of writing for different formats and working with the University of Cambridge.
The approach
As part of the rebrand, striking new brand guidelines had been produced. They were a joy to read and it was immediately clear that the tone of voice was a mile away from the current site copy, which in many ways felt timid in contrast to the groundbreaking discoveries that had emerged from the Cavendish Laboratory.
Rather than attempt to rewrite what was there, we started afresh, and carried out individual interviews with Department leads to find out in their own words what made the Cavendish so special. What were the messages that would resonate with key audiences – prospective undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and people in industry, policy or academia?
A glossary was created using compelling terms from these interviews and the brand guidelines themselves…pioneering…relentlessly curious…vision…frontiers…collaboration…so these phrases could be easily woven into the copy to ensure a fresh tone of voice that gave the reader the same sense of optimism and possibility that walking through the doors of the sophisticated new Ray Dolby Centre gives you.
Regular feedback meetings were set up at the start of the project to maintain momentum, and a shared spreadsheet enabled us to keep track of progress and feedback. Drafts of the copy were created in brand colours and fonts to enable it to ‘feel’ Cavendish even before it was added to the site.
Where old and new techniques collide
In keeping with the future-thinking spirit of the Cavendish, in this project we blended traditional copywriting techniques with AI to get the best results.
Interviewing leading physicists in person to gather fresh source information for the copy – while using an AI notetaker to record the transcripts and create the glossary of terms.
Using generative AI to create a dummy voiceover for the audio tour to check for accuracy and pacing – but bringing in prestigious scientists to voice the real thing.
Visiting the Ray Dolby Centre in person and walking the route several times to really get in the mindset when writing the copy - taking pictures and recording voice notes to capture essential visual clues so they didn’t get forgotten.
Weaving in contributions to physics from women which had been overlooked elsewhere into the clear and simple timeline, written with AI search in mind as well as Google.
Listening to content from leading visitor attractions to follow the conventions of writing for audio tours and include new techniques for ensuring engagement.
The results
The web presence is transformed into a stylish, accessible and easy-to-navigate site in keeping with the spirit of the Cavendish Laboratory.
With such a strong vision and excellent project management from the in-house comms leads Vanessa Bismuth and Pooja Pandey, the new site went live in time for the official opening of the Ray Dolby Centre in May 2025 and is winning praise for the clarity of the content and elegance of the design.
And the physics walking tour of Cambridge is getting 5-star reviews!
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Your work really made a difference
We have had so much positive feedback so far.
Thank you so much for all your work on this, it really made a difference.
Communications Manager for the Department of Physics (Cavendish Laboratory) at University of Cambridge