Marta Podgórny, PhD researcher (She/Her) | MSc, AMRSC, MInstP, Organiser of the Open Dialogues across Physics and Astronomy 2023 Conference, School of Physical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM), The Open University, Milton Keynes.

The aim of the Open Dialogues across Physics and Astronomy conference was to create a friendly atmosphere and encourage PhD students to start cross-discipline conversations. With physic-related and life-related discussion panels, the unique character of the first edition of this conference back in 2022 made me want to be involved in the organisation of this year’s Open Dialogues conference.

My main motivation was to keep that friendly atmosphere and give students a chance to present their work to a general physics audience. From quantum physics to astronomy and even physics education, everyone was able to find something interesting. Moreover, by giving the audience the possibility to anonymously comment on students’ talks, young researchers were able to improve their presentation skills and prepare for a more stressful, big international conference.

As an organiser of Open Dialogues, I had a chance to meet amazing people and share not only knowledge but also experience. I learned a lot about conference details that normally we don’t pay attention to and also how to organise and delegate work. I believe that this is a valuable experience for every PhD student and a great opportunity to feel fully responsible for a project without being supervised. The feeling of pride and fulfilment after the conference is definitely worth all the work.  Thank you to Cristobel Soares and for all her help and support during the organisation and to GRADnet for funding the event.

For details of both student-led conferences in March 2023 see below:

• Open Dialogues Across Physics and Astronomy
• The imitation game: a growing affinity between simulations and observations of our Universe

The Student-led Conferences took place 27-29 March 2023 at the Open University and Kents Hill Park Conference and Training Centre in Milton Keynes.  The parallel conferences this year were:

• Open Dialogues Across Physics and Astronomy

• The imitation game: a growing affinity between simulations and observations of our Universe

Over 45 delegates attended the conferences and welcomed the opportunity to network at the welcome drinks on the first evening and conference dinner on the second night.  Delegates were treated to an array of inspiring talks, posters, and cross-discipline panel discussions.  Visit the links above for full programme details book of abstracts.

Thank you to all the invited speakers:

Catxere Casacio, University of Surrey
Payel Das, University of Surrey
Alyssa Drake, University of Hertfordshire
Pierre Ghesquierre, Michelin
Vincent Graves, The Open University
Zhen Guo, Universidad de Valparaiso, Nucleo Milenio de Formacion Planetaria (NPF)
Charanjit Kaur, University of Manchester
Stacy Kim, University of Surrey
Michael Kuhn, University of Hertfordshire
Annika Lohstroh, VacuTec Meßtechnik GmbH
Rob Yates, University of Hertfordshire

Well done to Katarzyna Nowak, University of Hertfordshire and Marta Podgorny, The Open University and their committee members for organising two successful student-led conferences.

The call for proposals for next years student-led conferences will be in October 2023.

For International Women’s Day and beyond, let’s all fully #EmbraceEquity. Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.  A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA. And it’s critical to understand the difference between equity and equality.

The aim of the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme is to get the world talking about Why equal opportunities aren’t enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.  All IWD activity is valid, that’s what makes IWD inclusive.

So give equity a huge embrace:  https://www.internationalwomensday.com/theme

See how our SEPnet partners are celebrating IWD2023:  Herts; Kent; The Open; Portsmouth; QMUL; RHUL; Southampton;  Surrey; Sussex

Are you thinking about how to commercialise your research? Perhaps you already have an idea and want to get started? Or maybe you just want to get insights that will help you transition from academia into a business environment…

The hook to get SEPnet PGRs to attend a 2-day workshop on 15-17 February 2023 at the IOP, run by Julia Shalet, author of “The Really Good Idea Test” and an experienced innovator who has brought many new propositions to market.

Over the two days, delegates worked in teams with a real case study, taking a tried and tested step-by-step process to find a viable commercial opportunity. In their teams they were able to practise a set of common business skills that employers are looking for.

Thank you to Julia for sharing toolkits and stories from her experiences working with start-ups through to corporates.

Thank you to the following SEPnet employer contacts for joining us at the networking evening event on day one at the IOP in London: Yash Balaji, Nanofabrication Engineer, Oxford Quantum Circuits; Matt England, Trainee Patent Attorney, WP Thompson; Phil Goddard, Head of Data Science, Kindred Group; Rupert Mellor, Trainee Patent Attorney, WP Thompson; Mitchell Peaks; AMO Physicist, Quantum Engineer, Riverlane; Renuka Pothuraju, Nanofabrication Engineer, Oxford Quantum Circuits; Stuart Revell, RTACS;  Sam Rowley; Higher Data Scientist, BEIS; Durga Sankar, Founder & CEO, Arcus News and Rosh Sellahewa, Senior Manager, Deloitte.  Your insight and advice on working in industry was much appreciated by all attendees.

These workshops are always very highly rated and delegates particularly like how interactive and practical they are.

“Great workshop, really appreciated having the first day in person it made a huge difference to my ability to engage with the resources.”

“Julia was very engaging and personable, really made us feel welcome”

“Excellent workshop, clear, concise and interactive.”

The National Centre for Universities and Business presented their State of Relationship Report 2022 on 1st December and delighted to announce they published our case study on the success of SEPnet’s SME-DTN collaborative PhD scheme funded by Research England Development Fund.  See here for a copy of the report and our case study appears on page 41.

Having faced many challenges and issues launching this scheme during a pandemic, with the commitment and support of SEPnet HEIs, employer contacts and RED Fund, we now have 8 industry-relevant PhD projects underway!

Our list of amazing and innovative PhD projects: can be found here: SME-DTN PhD Scholarships October 2021-2022 – SEPnet

Looking forward to working with our new PhD students!  

Dr Ilana Wisby, Founding CEO and Director, Oxford Quantum Circuits, (OQC) a former SEPnet postgraduate researcher at RHUL was invited to talk at this year’s Alexander Stavrou Innovation Lecture on Wednesday, 9 November at the University of Surrey. 

Over the last 4.5 years, Ilana has taken OQC from a patent, to Europe’s leading Quantum Computing as a Service company.  Whilst deep technical roots and priority IP is certainly a core part of OQC’s USP – technology and inventions alone do not make successful companies. OQC’s Value-led Leadership and focus on people are equally, if not more, important.

Ilana shared the lessons she has learned as a deep tech entrepreneur, with a focus on crafting high performance, elite teams and employing considered Value-led Leadership. 

Thanks Ilana for encouraging Surrey undergraduates and postgraduate researchers to undertake a SEPnet summer placement and for endorsing GRADnet’s training programme from your personal experience during your PhD at RHUL!

GRADnet’s online workshop: Developing knowledge and skills in Public Engagement was delivered on 9 November 2022 on Zoom by Dr Claudia Antolini, The Ogden Trust Senior Officer for Outreach and Public Engagement, Royal Holloway University of London.  Over 25 PGRs attended the online event and were given the following tips on how to do public engagement:

• Identify a target public group/community and think about what your target group might be interested in and link your research to this.
• How can you reach your target group and what do you feel comfortable doing: teaching? Performing? Speaking in public? Running a workshop? Designing a resource/class/audio-visual asset?
• Do you have any hobbies that you could incorporate into your PE activity?
• Activities you’ve heard about – do you find any of them interesting? Would you like to try your hand at them?

Claudia outlined the current SEPnet Strategy:  Core Programme 1: Schools’ Outreach Aim; Core Programme 2: Teacher Continuing Professional Development Aim and Core Programme 3: Public Engagement with Research Aim.

Delegates were made aware of the importance of “public engagement impact” for REF/KEF and how “the sector needs to recognise and challenge the processes that maintain and perpetuate the elitism of STEM. Widening participation in STEM requires changes in power relations and cannot be achieved by continuing with ‘business as usual’.”

Attendees found the workshop “really intriguing” and that there were “a lot of important topics to think about!”

Claudia and the Outreach team look forward to seeing SEPnet postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers at the next session to be delivered on Wednesday, 22 March 2023 at 12:00-15:30.  This will be in the format of an interactive workshop at the IOP in Kings Cross, London for 25 SEPnet delegates and will allow space to discuss their own research and form ideas for engagement. SEPnet Outreach and Public Engagement officers will lead and facilitate this session, using their experience and working with attendees to create impactful engagement plans. There will also be guidance on how to evaluate and evidence engagement, which is particularly important in the context of REF.  SEPnet PGRs can register here by 10 March 2023.

Over 100 new SEPnet PhD students attended the GRADnet Induction Day on Wednesday, 26 October 2022 at One Park Crescent in central London.

Attendees were introduced to the three strands of SEPnet:  Employability, Outreach and GRADnet by Professor Jacob Dunningham, Executive Director, SEPnet. 

Tariq Himli, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Surrey, talked about his SEPnet Summer Placement at Occuity.  It was an 8-week placement setting up Monte-Carlo tolerance analysis tool.  The work involved interfacing between his own code and software for analysis and bringing ideas into a multidisciplinary group.  Tariq outlined why the placement was useful; he learned a lot about how software works; how to run them through code only; nice intro to industry work in general and it was a funded break from his PhD!

Laura Fryer, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Southampton also completed a summer placement this year at Openshaw & Co, Patent Attorneys.  Laura researched state of the art technologies; analysed patent documents and assessed whether inventions were new and inventive; prepared detailed documents of new inventions and made logical arguments as well as drafted responses to letters from the UK patent office.  Delegates heard how the hands-on experience was interesting and how Laura gained an understanding of what types of jobs and roles she might enjoy.  The placement was an opportunity to experience working in industry without leaving academia; it broadened her skillset and showed adaptability. 

Four parallel workshops were on offer:

• DISCnet Taster Session: Introduction to Machine Learning using ATLAS Open Data delivered by Dr Kate Shaw, Lecturer, Dr Thomas Stevenson, Research Fellow and Zoë Earnshaw, Postgraduate Researcher, Physics and Astronomy, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex;
• Introduction to basic Python & Introduction to Scientific Python delivered by Dr Tim Kinnear, Lecturer in Computational Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kent;
• How to get your research published delivered by Tom Sharp and Rob Freeman, Institute of Physics;
• Science Communication Skills delivered by Dr Claudia Antolini, SEPnet – The Ogden Trust Senior Officer for Outreach and Public Engagement, Royal Holloway University of London and Nuala O’Flynn, SEPnet/Ogden Physics Outreach and Public Engagement Officer at University of Hertfordshire.

Thank you to all our contributors for making this event a success this year.

After two years of online delivery due to the pandemic it was great to be back in person at One Park Crescent and having the opportunity to meet this year’s cohort of SEPnet PhD students face to face.  Everyone enjoyed meeting their fellow PGRs and found the workshops really useful.  

Hope to see some of you at a future GRADnet event.  See here for our training programme for 2022-23.

Science Communication Skills; Python; IOP How to get your research published and DISCnet workshops: