The UKCCSRC Spring Biannual ECR Poster Competition Winners are Announced

On the 11 and 12 April, the UKCCSRC held their biannual conference, CCS in the UK: Delivering for the Future, at Imperial College London. A regular feature at UKCCSRC conferences is the Early Career Researcher (ECR) poster competition, where ECRs have the chance to display their work to senior academics and industry experts.

Two independent judges score each poster and competition winners are each awarded a £250 professional development bursary which can be used to attend training courses and industry events. Even for those who don’t win, the judging process gives ECRs an opportunity to gain valuable feedback and insight into their work. New for this poster competition was the additional opportunity for the winners to present their posters to the UKCCSRC Independent Advisory Panel (IAP). The IAP is comprised of over 20 highly regarded individuals from CCS stakeholder groups who advise the UKCCSRC management team on strategic engagement with industry. Prof. Jon Gibbins, UKCCSRC Director, said “The winners who attended the IAP meeting did an excellent job presenting their work to a room of 25 people and fielding some searching questions. The IAP noted that it made a very good start to the meeting and look forward to it becoming a regular feature.”

The conference had a record 25 posters exhibited, so competition was high. The winning entrants were, Mai Bui, Imperial College London, Clara Heuberger, Imperial College London and Nathan Welch, Imperial College London. Upon receiving her certificate Mai Bui, who exhibited a poster titled “Thermodynamic evaluation of carbon negative power generation: Bio-energy CCS (BECCS)”, said “Presenting a poster at the UKCCSRC biannual provides young researchers like myself the opportunity to gain invaluable feedback from industrial and academic CCS experts, which is essential for the development of young researchers”. Clara Heuberger, who’s winning poster was “Social, policy, economics, environment: Go now or wait and see?” commented “It’s a great recognition and honour to receive the UKCCSRC poster prize. The feedback and interest from the IAP gave me additional motivation to push the boundaries of our research.” And, Nathan Welch, who displayed a poster titled “Storage, Permeability and Sealing Characteristics of Reservoir Caprock” added “Earning the UKCCSRC ECR poster prize at the spring biannual conference this year has given me tremendous encouragement in the continuation of my carbon storage research. The conference was a great opportunity to hear from industry and academic leading researchers about current events in CCS in the UK and around the world”.