Latest Events

We’re inviting business leaders, policymakers, academics, innovators, and pioneers to learn how to build and nurture a sustainability and circular economy culture within their organisation.

The circular economy model is considered an important enabler to achieving sustainability outcomes and tends to help shape sustainability strategies. Understanding how the circular economy works and how it can be implemented is pivotal to the success of the sustainability vision and mission of companies, industries, sectors, and the economy at large.

In Executive Education’s upcoming webinar, Khaled Soufani, Management Practice Professor of Financial Economics & Policy, and Dr Samsurin Welch, Cambridge Judge Associate, will discuss the most impactful circular solutions and topics that will be covered in the Sustainability and Circular Economy programme. Learn and assess the difference between a traditional economic model and the circular economic model in achieving sustainability goals.

To learn more about the programme and its content and learning objectives join us at our webinar and register below. There are two slots to choose from; one at 09:00 GMT and one at 15:00 GMT.

If you have any queries about this event or the programme please do not hesitate to reach out to Adriana Baciu, Sales and Business Development Manager, Open Programmes.

Register: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/events/what-is-sustainability-and-circular-eco...

The School of Physical Sciences and School of Technology Research Relations Team invites you to an information session about the Wellcome Trust’s Discovery Research programme, especially designed for researchers in SPS and SoT.

The session will be presented by Sarah Lloyd, Senior Research Manager, Discovery Research, Wellcome. It will focus on exploring funding opportunities for physical sciences and technology research. Wellcome supports research from any discipline as long as it has the potential to improve human life, health and wellbeing, and aligns with Wellcome’s funding remit.

This is an excellent opportunity for those who are not very familiar with Wellcome to hear about the remit of its discovery research programme as well as key features of the schemes, review processes and topics such as exploring research culture in Wellcome applications.

There will be an initial overview of the Wellcome remit, followed by two sessions, one aimed at PIs and focused on Discovery Awards, and one aimed at postdocs and Early Career Researchers looking at Wellcome Fellowship schemes. We invite you to attend all or any parts you will find most useful.

When: Thursday 2nd May, 11am – 2.15pm

Where: Room East 1, West Hub, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Avenue, CB3 0US 

Who this is open to: This event is open to any researchers in the Schools of the Physical Sciences and Technology, and collaborators in other parts of the University.

How to register: Please complete the MS Teams registration form here by Wednesday 24th April.

Once signed up, please hold the time in your calendar; we will circulate a diary invitation to all registrants in due course.

Agenda:

11.00 – 11.15am              Arrival & welcome

11.15 – 11.45am              Overview of Wellcome remit – how technology and physical sciences fit into the discovery science portfolio.

11.45 – 12.15am              Focus session on Wellcome Discovery Awards – key features, review process, panels, research culture and other topics of interest

12.15 – 12.30pm             Q&A

12.30 – 1.15pm                Lunch and free networking

1.15 – 1.50pm                   Focus session on Fellowship schemes (Early Career Awards and Career Development Awards)

1.50 – 2.00pm                   View from a successful Fellow – Dr Mateo Sanchez Lopez (Dept. Chemistry)

2.00 – 2.15pm                   Q&A

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at SPSResearchFacilitator@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Speaker: Rosa Arrigo, University of Salford

Water electrolysis stands as a cornerstone technology for green hydrogen production from renewable energy and consists of two half-cell reactions: the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The sluggish kinetics of the state-of-the-art OER electrocatalysts based on iridium oxide severely limit the overall efficiency of the process and, consequently, its economic viability. An in-depth comprehension of the atomic-level mechanisms governing this reaction is considered essential for designing enhanced materials and advancing the transition to a sustainable and resilient energy sector. In situ structural characterization techniques, such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, serve this purpose well as they enable real-time monitoring of the chemical composition, structural phase, and electronic configuration of the species at the gas/liquid/solid interface during the interfacial electrocatalytic turnover. In this talk, I will present an overview of the experimental approaches developed in our group and by others to probe the reactive interface during OER , as well as our current understanding of the reaction mechanism on Ir-O-based systems gained using both soft and hard X-ray spectroscopic techniques.

Climate change and sustainability are social issues, to a large extent perpetuated by social, political, and economic systems that shape and govern our access to resources, livelihood possibilities, and capacity to change, as well as to utilise old and new technologies and livelihood practices in order to mitigate and adapt to new realities. Furthermore, the way we talk about and frame these issues also shapes how we conceive of solutions and our abilities as individuals and communities to act.

Cambridge Zero and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) invite you to the Symposium 'Climate change is a social issue! taking place at the Alison Richard Building on the 7th May 2024.The symposium will bring into focus the impact and contributions the social sciences, arts, and humanities have had on climate and sustainability-related discussions, ranging from engaging communities and practitioners to instigate climate action; (re-)framing climate and environmental narratives, solutions, and technologies; allaying emotions of anxieties, grief and loss; contextualising the ‘place’, geographies, and politics of green transitions and climate-related negotiations; to creating usable and applied histories and archaeologies. Changing our understanding of climate change and sustainability issues, how they arose, and how they can exacerbate unjust transitions is a huge endeavour that is hard to quantify and hardly recognised, but has potentially huge social impacts.

The symposium will feature a number of keynote presentations from senior Cambridge academics, and we are inviting submissions from Early Career Researchers (Cambridge Postdocs, PhD and Masters students) to present their research. The symposium aims is to highlight the necessity of social science, humanities, and arts research around climate change as well as to strengthen collaboration cross-disciplinary collaboration including with STEM disciplines, business, and others, in order to make social, policy, economic, and technological advances more impactful at local and national scales.

Keynotes:

• Prof Christine Schwöbel-Patel
• Dr Liam Saddington
• TBD

We invite researchers to speak on (but not limited to):

• Changing and re-framing climate narratives among communities, authorities, and policy makers
• New frameworks that help communities, businesses, and authorities to adapt to new climate realities and increase access to resources
• The impact of climate policies, systems, and technologies on politics, economics, and societies
• The use, re-use, and (re-)invention of old and new social practices, livelihood strategies, infrastructure, and technologies to adapt and mitigate new climate realities
• Localisation of climate and environmental change
• Climate communication that makes the effects of climate and sustainability more tangible, relatable and experiential
• Shaping perspectives on health through climate and vice versa
• Barriers and solutions to sustainable and just net-zero transitions
• Religious thought and practice as motivator, resistor and/or guide for climate engagement

Cambridge Early Career Researchers can submit their abstract here!

A free one-hour tour of the capabilities of the Royce Institute's 3D Bioelectronics Facility within the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. Discover more about this open access equipment and Royce funding opportunities for your research.

The Royce 3D Bioelectronics Facility is designed for physical scientists and engineers to test the interaction of 3D materials and bioelectronic devices with cells. Our focus is facilitating researchers, with limited access to cell biology equipment, in the fabrication and subsequent analysis of 3D-cell interfacing constructs.

Cell-biological training provided at the 3D Bioelectronics Facility encourages networking between researchers from a range of disciplines. This facility is embedded within the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy to capitalise on their expertise. Equipment falls into six categories:

• Ice-templating equipment to fabricate porous 3D materials from aqueous suspensions.
• Cell culture equipment for growth and maintenance of cells in 3D culture.
• Electrical acquisition equipment to analyse cell behaviour on novel materials and bioelectronic devices.
• Simultaneous optical and electrical measurement of cells and materials via two-photon microscopy with integrated electrophysiology.
• Apparatus to section 3D samples.
• Equipment to transport live cell containing devices to and from the 3D Bioelectronics Facility.
• This tour will give an overview of the capabilities of the 3D Bioelectronics Facility as well as information on booking, funding opportunities and the work of the Royce Institute.

For more information about Royce Facilities at Cambridge please contact royce@maxwell.cam.ac.uk and see our full equipment listing at: https://www.maxwell.cam.ac.uk/programmes/henry-royce-institute