How C-DICE and the Faraday Institution’s partnership is developing postdoctoral talent

Written by Dr Kathryn North, Director, C-DICE, and Fran Long, Head of Education and Talent Development, The Faraday Institution

The Faraday Institution and Centre for Postdoctoral Development in Infrastructure, Cities and Energy (C-DICE) have established a partnership that will enable closer collaboration, in the pursuit of net zero carbon and the development of researchers’ careers. Postdoctoral researchers who are funded by or aligned with the Faraday Institution can benefit from the synergies between the two consortia – read on to find out more. 

Firstly, the Faraday Institution and C-DICE recognise the importance of developing researchers’  technical and professional skills for realising their potential as creators of new knowledge, pushing the frontiers of research, and being equipped to work collaboratively to address large scale challenges such as the ambition to achieve net zero carbon.  The Faraday Institution provides a range of Master Classes around technical skills aligned to battery research, and C-DICE provides researchers with opportunities to access technical expertise linked to research facilities in the UKCRIC and ERA partners.  This partnership extends the reach of both organisations, to benefit more researchers.  C-DICE gives the chance for researchers to share their expertise whilst developing their teaching capability through our peer-led opportunities.  These are great opportunities for researchers to really embed, develop and share their expertise.

Secondly, C-DICE and the Faraday Institution provide a supportive and inclusive environment that nurtures research talent, provides structured, semi-structured and unstructured opportunities for development, and raises the profile of the contribution that researchers are making.  It is vitally important that researchers can extend their knowledge, skills and aspirations to be able to achieve their potential, and find pioneering solutions for the pressing challenges of our time in the race to create a sustainable future.  C-DICE and the Faraday Institution support and engage researchers in this endeavour.  This can include funded opportunities, research training support grants, ad hoc training, sandpits to bid for funding or industrial fellowships or networking grants to enable researchers to expand their networks and experience.  The Faraday Institution have a portfolio of large scale research projects as well as Entrepreneurial Fellowships, Industry Fellowships, a series of sprint projects, large scale research projects, and a bespoke PhD training programme and undergraduate internships.

Finally, we know that our industry sectors are crying out for highly skilled talent that can quickly attend to the challenges that they face, and that researchers are ideally placed to fill this gap – although may not have the awareness of the opportunities, or the confidence to pursue connections with industry. 

C-DICE and the Faraday Institution can support and equip researchers in this journey, bridging the gap between academia and industry or the third sector to ensuring skills are tailored and industry are aware of the often untapped wealth of talent that our early career researchers represent.  Together, through our bespoke programmes we can attract, train and nurture talent in the quest to put the UK at the forefront of science, technology and policy innovation needed to create our sustainable future.    

C-DICE gave a webinar at the Faraday Institution as part of the Faraday Career Week. If you missed the webinar you can catch up with it here.

Click to find out more and access opportunities:

C-Dice – website, Twitter @CentreDice, LinkedIn @c-dice

The Faraday Institution – website, Twitter: @FaradayInst, LinkedIn: @FaradayInst