Tag: networking

1st MRC Centre for Environment and Health’s Sustainability Workshop

by Aina Roca Barceló

On the 29th of January 2020, a group of students and staff members from Imperial College London gathered with one objective: to identify the barriers to a more sustainable workspace. This was part of the 1st MRC Centre for Environment and Health’s Sustainability Workshop, organised by the MRC Researchers Society’s co-chair Aina Roca Barceló (1st year President PhD Scholar), supported by the MRC Centre for Environment and Health, within the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department (EBS), represented by Drs Fred Piel and Eduardo Seleiro. This was kindly funded by the Graduate School’s Research Community Fund.

For a long time, I (and a lot of people out there) believed that information would lead to change. We now know this is not necessarily correct for climate action. The planet is warming – we know it. Long-term changes in climate, biodiversity, air, water and soil quality are caused by human actions – we know it. We are running out of time to minimise the damage to Earth – we know it. We need to change our behaviours if we want to save humanity and the planet – again, we know it. We are probably the most well informed generation that the Earth has seen [1] and yet, we can’t seem to change fast enough, and not at all in some fronts. Even more alarming is the fact that those advocating for this change often fail to make the necessary changes themselves. Ironic, isn’t it? Yet, this is the reality for many Academic environments. The 1st MRC Centre for Environment and Health’s Sustainability Workshop was designed to change this drift and create the momentum to initiate a sustainability journey in the department. This involved creating an engaging space for students at the School of Public Health (staff members were also welcomed) to identify barriers to sustainable behaviours and generate ideas for action.

Prof. Paul Lickiss, Academic Sustainability Leader at Imperial College London, presenting the current reality of the university and its future plans in relation to its sustainable practises.

The first stop of our journey; where are we starting from? To do so, we invited Prof. Paul Lickiss, the new Academic Leader in Sustainability for Imperial College London. He guided us through all the past, present and future initiatives happening at Imperial. Several of the initiatives described and available resources were unknown by most of the audience, which highlighted the need for better communication.

 

Dr. Nicola Hogan, Sustainability Manager for the Sustainability Team at King’s College London, giving some useful tips on how to make institutions greener, building on her previous experience.

Second stop; how are others moving? Dr Nicola Hogan from the Sustainability Team at King’s College London shared with us a collection of “lessons learned” from their long-running and highly-successful sustainability programme, giving us useful practical tips for achieving rapid changes.

Third stop; why are we not moving? We were determined to identify concrete problems and the barriers to more sustainable behaviours. To do this, we ran a behavioural change co-creation workshop with a user-centred approach. The idea was to promote an environment and state of mind that puts aside prejudice and preconceived ideas and fosters empathy, introspection and creative thinking. One of the activities we used to endorse empathy and explore barriers was role playing. In small groups, participants mapped potential unsustainable actions in a normal day of a fictional character and discussed reasons for such actions, based on that character’s story. To the surprise of most participants, barriers were often neither financial nor relating to knowledge (despite these being the focus of most campaigns and initiatives) but emotional, cultural or social instead. This, and the rest of activities highlighted the complex mixture of barriers that conditions behavioural changes, while also creating a nice engaging drive to push for change.

Participants and keynote speakers networking during our sustainable and eco-friendly lunch.

Final stop; let’s move! Of the barriers and unsustainable practises identified in the activities, each group picked a few and brainstormed ideas on how to break those walls that inhibit people to change. Groups were encouraged to think big, to think outside the box, we wanted to drift away from the standard initiatives and create something unique and suitable for our audience.

What is next, you may be wondering? Well, the workshop helped to create a nice momentum that we aim to keep exploring in the coming months. So far, the lines of work that have arose from the workshop include: the creation of a working group focusing on looking in more detail into the ideas generated in the workshop and suggesting potential changes to make the university more sustainable; organizing awareness campaigns; continue to grow our relationship with the Academic Sustainability Leader Prof. Paul Lickiss, and starting some conversations with other groups across the college with similar interests to join up and bring forces together. So, stay tuned to know more about what we found out. Soon on our website!

Overall, the workshop was well received by both the participants and the keynote speakers, who engaged in part of the co-creation workshop. Based on the feedback, the workshop helped to create a great space to discuss with peers’ and institutional representatives’ views, concerns and ideas to keep pushing our university forward and set the seed for a sustainability network.

Co-organizer Aina Roca Barcelo (1st year President Scholar PhD student) introducing the first activity of the co-creation workshop.
Picture of the “Know your problem” activity, where the different issues raised where classified based on “how many people is affected” and whether the problem is “institutional or individual”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Funding disclaimer: This initiative has been possible thanks to the generous support from the Community Research Seed Fund, Imperial College London.

[1] Obviously, with some communities remaining in the shadow of this information pandemic due to social, economic and technical limitations

Exploring London’s Hidden Tunnels

On 28th February, the researchers from the Geotechnics Section explored some of London’s hidden tunnels in a fascinating tour run by the London Transport Museum. With the financial support from the Graduate School cohort building fund, we were able to enjoy this social event and get closer as a group while also learning more about the tunnels that many of us study as part of our research projects.

On Friday afternoon, we all made our way to Euston station and joined the brilliant team from ‘Hidden London’ who first gave us a presentation on the history of the London Underground. Once we all had our high-vis jackets on, we were led down into the tunnels, past the busy crowds of commuters into the parts of the station that are normally hidden from the public. We were able to see one of the original ticket offices, beautiful old posters and many disused station-, construction-, and ventilation-tunnels. Since we are a group of geologists and geotechnical engineers it was an amazing experience for us to learn so much about the tunnels and the construction processes behind them. It was also a great opportunity for everyone to start conversation and get to know the new students that had recently started their PhD in the Section. Thanks to the support from the Graduate School we were able to bond as a group and gained a boost of motivation for our research by exploring the tunnels that engineers built in the last hundred years. After the tour, we gathered in a nearby pub, talked about the experience, each other’s research work and life and enjoyed each other’s company until the day came to an end.

SPIKE Goes Karting

After weeks of online SuperTuxKart championships, it was time for the PhD members of the SPIKE research group to race in real life. On Sunday, 8 March, 2020 (just before a pandemic took over the world), SPIKE members enjoyed an eventful evening of go karting followed by a group dinner.

The evening was a chance to help foster the team spirit of the research group, and enable collaboration that goes beyond the day to day activities of each member’s individual research journey. As one PhD student put it:

“Karting was an unequalled experience: the wind on my face, the speed making the kart almost fly… It would have been that, if I had not worn a helmet, and I had not driven as slow as a stroll in the park (cit.).
But it was my first time karting at all, and as they say, better safe than sorry, right?
Anyway, it was a fun experience. It was cool to see people you normally see at work in a more relaxed atmosphere, where you don’t feel guilty if you’re not discussing work.​”

All in all, it was an evening to remember. Thanks to the Graduate School for sponsoring it.

London Malaria ECR Network Launch Event

In their effort to establish an Early Career Research (ECR) community for all malaria researchers based at London research institutes, PhD students organized a launch event at the Crick Institute to bring everyone together. Research assistants, research technicians, PhD students and junior postdocs who work under either computational or laboratory settings were encouraged to interact with researchers outside their own social/departmental circles and suggest their ideas about the future of this network. None missed the chance to also show-off their ‘Knowles-it-all’ expertise on a malaria-based pub quiz, while enjoying nibbles and drinks.

Over 50 people from four different London-based institutes registered for the event, with a turnout of 30. It was a fantastic success and the outputs of the evening have included launch of a Slack and Twitter account which will facilitate the direct communication between researchers, a speed-networking event where researchers will have a few minutes to talk about their work with each other and more future social events where researchers will have the opportunity to mainly have fun and build new friendships and collaborations. Everyone in the end left with an ‘Ano-pheeling good’ attitude!

The workshop was made possible through the generous financial support of the Graduate School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bounce Ping Pong Intersectional Social 2019

With the Christmas break a distant memory and work-weary lab members itching for a break, re-energisation of the work place was desperately in order. And how better to achieve this than with ping pong, pizza and (substantial quantities of) alcohol? Generous funding was granted from the Research Community Fund, allowing PhD students and early career post-docs from the Section of Investigative Medicine and Section of Cell Biology and Functional Genomics to attend an inter-lab social at Bounce Ping Pong on 12th April 2019. Due to popular demand, a round robin competition was held across the two hired tables, with members from different sections paired into doubles teams. Play ensued with fierce competition, and winners emerged from both sections!

Jamie Frampton, a first year PhD student and a winner of the competition emphasised how much he enjoyed the event. He referred to his team’s win as “legendary” and said that “it was great meeting new people with similar scientific interests over a drink while smashing a few ping pong balls. Who’d have thought that ping pong and scientific networking were such compatible activities?”

Rebecca Cheung, a second year PhD student, expressed her gratitude to the Graduate School for facilitating the event. She enquired as to how to apply for funding, stating that “events such as these are so important in raising morale and strengthening lab friendships. And thinking about it, this was probably the most fun I’ve had whilst still being able to talk about my research!”

Completing a PhD is testing even at the best of times. Events such as these are therefore crucial in fostering a supportive and friendly lab environment, and so we would sincerely like to thank the Graduate School for making it possible. As people came together over food and drink, with laughs and time to reflect on current work, we headed into the Easter break with continued dreams of research success.

Yateen Patel and Maria Lucey, Section of Investigative Medicine

Computational Chemistry Intradepartmental Meeting (CCIM)

On the evening of Thursday the 7th of February, the Computational Chemistry division of the Chemistry Department held its third monthly research and social event. These meetings started running in September to strengthen the professional and personal relationships between computational research groups, which have found themselves sharing a large open-plan office after the departmental move to the White City campus in Summer 2018. The meetings are mainly organised by the postgraduate students of each group and promote the integration of students of all levels into the wider departmental community.

This month, we put up the event with the generous help of the Graduate School cohort building fund. The meeting was attended by about 50 people, split evenly between undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and PIs of the computational groups within the Chemistry department. As in the previous months, we started the evening with a brief presentation of our group’s work. All current students of the group, joined by collaborating students from the maths department, presented a few applications of graph-theoretical methods, including the study of protein dynamics. After the presentation everyone in the audience participated in a quiz-style activity (which involved buzzers!) based on the same mathematical methods we use in our work. Afterwards we all moved on to socialising over drinks, snacks and Homeslice pizza.

It was a great opportunity for new students to introduce themselves to the rest of the cohort, for some stimulating academic conversations and for everyone to have some fun, too! We are extremely grateful for the Graduate School’s funding, and we will be recommending it to anyone else organizing similar events.

With love,
The Yaliraki Group

Fig. 1 Snacks and refreshments set up….courtesy of the Graduate School!
Fig. 2 The Yaliraki group after a successful presentation

Bioengineering PhDs go for an escape room and dinner!

On Saturday the 2nd of February 2019, the first-year PhDs from the Bioengineering Department went for a nice evening out, that started with an escape room followed by a nice Italian dinner.

The objective of this activity was fomenting a good relationship and friendship between the first-year PhD students from the Bioengineering Department, as we don’t all know each other despite constantly crossing each other in the hallways. We are all now starting a 3-4 year journey where these relationships are going to be invaluable, not only on a personal level but also on the professional one, as thriving engineering usually requires (besides obvious personal effort) help/knowledge from others and team effort. Now we’ll know who to ask for help if we run into a problem that it is not in our main domain or field!

The evening started at 6:25pm as we gathered in the entrance of the escape room. For some it was their first time on an escape room, while for others it was another opportunity more to prove our intellects. We randomly divided into four teams and the game masters of HintHunt London led us to the entrance of our respective rooms and introduced us into the story we were going to play: for some of us it was about stopping an embezzler from doing a transaction while for others it was about getting out of a Japanese-themed room in less than an hour. After some stress because the time was running out, through teamwork and deduction skills, all the teams managed to get out of their rooms!

After this, we walked to Franco Manca, our destination for dinner, while getting to know each other. Once there, our lovely waiters led us to two adjacent tables where we had some great burrata as a starter, delicious pizza for main, and tiramisu for dessert, all accompanied by some wine. Even our Italian peers were satisfied with the feast!

After the dinner, some decided to retreat home, tired from the evening out, while some of us decided to move the evening to a pub, where we continued to get to know each other and had a few more drinks.

The event was a total success! We had lots of fun, used our heads, filled out tummies and had an overall great night! A big thank you to the Graduate School for funding this event, we’ll be making it an annual or even semesterly event!

‘Breaking the Ice’ – Hammersmith Campus Postgraduate Social!

Postgraduate students based at the Imperial Hammersmith Hospital campus took to the ice for a PG student social at the Natural History Museum on Wednesday the 19th of December. This social brought together research students from the departments of Medicine, Surgery & Cancer and the NHLI in a festive skating session followed by drinks at ħ bar, allowing PG students on the campus to mingle across different departments and disciplines.

The event was a great success, bringing together research students from across departments and institutes based at the Hammersmith hospital campus, as well as other research staff that were interested in getting involved with the event (including clinical and postdoctoral fellows). The Graduate School’s Research Community Fund, paid for twenty tickets for PGR students to go ice skating at the NHM (which sold out within 12 hours of the email being sent out) and a free drink at ħ bar, where PG students shared a festive drink as a way to send off the end of term before college closes.

This event was organised by campus-based PhD student representatives (Emily Heathward, with assistance from Hannah Maude and Berta Font Cunill), who’d like to improve the postgraduate research community in the Faculty of Medicine at the Hammersmith Campus, and serves as an introductory event, with high hopes for more to follow.

Thank you to the Graduate School for enabling this event to take place!

Mech Eng – Robotics Forum PhD Connect

by Eloise Matheson, PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering

The first PhD networking event for robotics related researchers was held on Thursday 15th November 2018. Sponsored by the Imperial College Graduate School Research Community Fund and the supported by the Imperial College Robotics Forum (Network of Robotics), this event was aimed to connect PhD researchers across the college that face similar technical and research challenges! Robotics in general is a very multi-disciplinary topic, and with over 28 robotics labs spread across departments and faculties, this event was a great chance to bring people together. Over 50 people from 15 different labs registered for the event, with a turnout of around 40. It was a fantastic success, and the outputs of the afternoon have included ad hoc visits to other’s labs, the plan to form a mailing list between PhD/EngD researchers, future smaller social meetings and the hope to run the event annually.

The afternoon started with a short presentation by Prof. Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena, the Speaker for the Robotics Forum, who highlighted the importance of creating links between our labs at all levels – including between PhDs and other researchers.

Keen to meet the other researchers in the audience, we then had a few minutes to introduce ourselves to someone we didn’t know – and following that, to introduce our new partner in a round circle to the rest of the group.

The group introduction helped break the ice, so that we could begin the main activity of the afternoon – intense speed meeting! We broke into pre-allocated smaller groups over three sessions each of 20 minutes, meaning that targeted discussions could take place. The first session grouped people from different labs together, and the topic encouraged them to talk about best practises from their labs. The second grouped people of similar research topics together – specifically covering Modelling and Simulation, Control, Mechanical Design, and Sensing and Electronics. The third and final group split us according to a more social demographic – with Post-Docs and later stage PhDs in one group, early PhDs in another, middle PhDs in the third and finally all the robotics female researchers together, so that they could discuss issues and exchange ideas pertinent to their experience.

To conclude a fantastic afternoon, we finished the event with food and drinks and a social networking opportunity. Thanks again to the Graduate School for enabling this event!

Cross-CDT Ice Skating Event

by Martin Prießner, PhD student in the Department of Chemistry

On Tuesday the 11th of December the first event of this year’s Cross-CDT event series took place. The Cross-CDT event series aims to strengthen the already established friendships and form new ones between CDT students of different disciplines across the different cohort years. By organising meetings and fun activities with an informal character, the participating students get the opportunity to exchange their PhD experiences and professional and private matters. This enables them to form long-lasting friendships which will hopefully surpass their PhD studies.

On this winter-like evening on the 11th of December a total of 18 CDT students from 4 different CDT programs across two cohort years gathered together in front of the library at Imperial College London. Since not everyone knew everyone from the group, we briefly introduced each other and spoke a bit about how we found out about this event. In these conversations some of us found out that through the well-connected network within the CDT programs, we had already quite a few friends in common. After everyone arrived, we started walking to the ice rink at the Natural History Museum and got ready to demonstrate our skills on the ice!

Since there were some participants from countries in which the climate is naturally too warm to form ice, it was a first-time experience for them. With some of the more ‘advanced’ skaters helping those less able, everyone finally managed to get comfortable on the ice and most of us gathered at the Christmas tree in the centre of the ice rink for a nice group picture.

After roughly one hour we finished ice skating and rewarded ourselves with a drink at the bar, where we continued to exchange our experiences of the CDT program and the opportunities afforded to us as part of this cohort, e.g. helping organise the festival of science, which some members of the group had done the year before.

Following the skating, some of the group decided to go to the Bio-Eng-Christmas party in the Royal School of Mines to continue the evening!

To summarise this first Cross-CDT event was a very successful gathering of CDT-PhD students across different CDT years. We had a great time ice skating, celebrating and exchanging our experience of the PhD so far.

Thank you to the Graduate School of Imperial College London, for the financial support to ensure this cohort building activity could take place.