MIDAS Progress meeting

MIDAS conference dinner underneath the sperm whale skeleton at Manchester Museum

In September, MIDAS brought together academics, industry experts and stakeholders for a three-day meeting at the Manchester Museum to discuss the grants progress and future directions. The first two days included keynote speakers from Rolls Royce and Westinghouse, an EDIA workshop led by Chrissi McCarthy from Constructing Equality, updates on all KC areas and a poster session where researchers presented their individual projects.

The poster session brought gave MIDAS and affiliated researchers a chance to discuss their work with the wider zirconium research community. Ömer Koç won the poster prize for Irradiation-induced microstruture evolution in a Nb-containing Zr alloy, runners up were Mechanical properties of irradiated materials and XRD line-profile Analysis by Rhys Thomas and Coated Zirconium Alloy Fuel Rod Cladding for Accident Tolerance by Ioannis Alakiozidis.

The final day brought together all stakeholders to discuss priorities for Phase 2 of MIDAS as well as a separate session on post-MIDAS planning and opportunities. Recordings of the talks from the progress meeting will be available in coming months.

As MIDAS comes to an end, we aim to help our researchers decide what to do next. Following the MIDAS progress meeting, Mia Maric led a careers development workshop for PDRA and PhD candidates. The session included CV tips and tricks, as well as interview preparation and expectations. We had speakers from Rolls-Royce, CNL, Westinghouse, Jacobs, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Manchester to provide advice on career paths in academia, research institutions, and industry. Panel members included Alistair Garner (jacobs), Andrew Sherry (University of Manchester), Adrien Couet (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Joseph Ward (Rolls-Royce), Helen Hulme (Jacobs), Heidi Nordin (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories), Michael Rogers (Rolls-Royce), Zaheen Shah (Westinghouse). The researchers also had the chance to engage in discussions with the panel members, ensuring that any questions they had about their future careers could be answered.