Royce Student Sandpits and Summits

Royce Student Summits present the opportunity for the UK Materials PhD and EngD community to come together to share ideas, network and learn more about transitioning from doctoral study to the next steps on the career ladder.   

Programmes include invited speakers from academia and industry, but the focus is  on student talks to provide an opportunity for participants to present their ongoing research in the field.

In addition to the talks, networking opportunities allow participants to meet peers from across the materials science community.

A series of workshops are also offered to encourage discussion of the summit themes in more detail and offer advice on career development in academia, industry or beyond.

These events provide a chance for PhD students to connect with peers working in materials science disciplines and experience a ‘sandpit’ format often used by research councils and funders to stimulate new lines of thinking for tackling complex research challenges.

Participants are tasked with exploring a set scientific topic, working within a team to identify the challenges faced within the application area, and then exercising their own expertise to devise novel proposals and solutions. These intensive proposal-forming environments encourage the creation of new collaborations, identification of barriers to success and mitigation of conflicting approaches.

The events offers a chance for PhD students to experience the research sandpit format, meet with their peers from the materials science community and work together on solving a challenging problem that exists within the discipline.

Throughout our sandpits, participants work on a “Grand Challenge”, applying their own expertise to apply their scientific thinking to a real-world problem.

Participants will work in small groups, learning how to tackle the challenge as a team in order to respond to the Grand Challenge. At the end of the sandpit, groups will have devised a proposal which summaries their work in the research challenge. This is then presented to a panel of expert judges who will appraise the ideas and offer feedback on the proposal, as well as awarding prize money to the teams based on their performance.