One hundred and eighty three Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Researchers descended on the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Birmingham earlier this week for the ‘first of its kind event’ that centred around early career researchers, postdocs and PhD students in the field.
The event that ran from Monday 16th-Wednesday 18th December, consisted of presentations from prestigious keynote speakers from both academia and industry, a passionate panel discussion with newly appointed academics, 23 presentations from PhD students and PostDocs, several poster sessions with over 90 posters and of course a conference dinner that took place at the nearby Edgbaston Cricket Stadium.
A panel discussion consisting of four newly appointed lecturers and fellows took place in order to advise anyone in the audience who wished to pressure an academic career. The panel was Chaired by Prof Nigel Brandon, the Director of H2FC SUPERGEN who was joined by Dr Greg Offer (Imperial) , Dr Valeska Ting (Bath), Dr Dennis Krammer (Southampton) and Dr Paul Shearing (UCL). Each panel member gave overview of their careers to date and advice they would give to those wanting to pursue a career in academia. The charismatic panel delivered a passionate discussion giving advice about the importance of networking, planning and making sure you are always working one grade above your current position!
A number of keynote talks covering all areas were given by key academics including Prof Nigel Brandon (SOFCs), Prof Mark Thomas (Storage), Prof Antony Kucernak (PEMFC) Dr Stuart Scott (Hydrogen Production) as well as industrial representation from Dr Mark Selby (Ceres Power) and Jane Patterson (Ricardo). As well as talks, the conference dinner took place at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, where plenty of discussion about Hydrogen & Fuel Cells took place!
We were delighted with the feedback from the conference and plan to have a similar event next year. Presentations from the event will be available on the website in January. We would like to thank all the presenters and attendees of the conference.
