Building community is one of the main challenges in any bigger entity. Where many work under a shared framework there’s a lot of potential to exploit. However, getting building bridges and communication channels isn’t always easy, in particular when areas of expertise aren’t closely related in the first instance. The CDT in Metamaterials is no different in that regard – with about 65 active postgraduate researchers across 4 cohort years there’s quite a lot of opportunity for sharing of knowledge and innovative thinking right on the PGRs’ doorstep. And at the same time it can be difficult to create links with those that are not in the same research group. To facilitate the wider connections across the Metamaterials themes and to mark the start of long lasting, effective relationships between our 23 new starters and the older cohorts we organised our very first PGR away day at the end of this year’s induction week.
“The Outdoors Group” whisked the PGRs away to West Town Farm just outside of the village Ide for some interactive team working exercises where they relied on their communication skills, support and trust to accomplish the challenges presented to them. For not to miss out on a research knowledge exchange opportunitywith so many of the PGRs gathered, we introduced an exercise fondly remembered of by Prof Euan Hendry when thinking about his time at the AMOLF institute in Amsterdam: we gave the 4th year PGRs a week to find out more about their 2nd year peers’ projects to be able to present these to all of the PGRs on the away day.
See below some impressions of the XM² away day in September 2018.
