UKCCSRC September 2017 Biannual: ECR Session- Career development from an industry perspective

My name is Hisham Al Baroudi, and I am a research student about to enter in his second year of PhD programme at Cranfield University. I feel lucky to be working on a project which I find extremely interesting and stimulating, exhibiting high technical and engineering challenges. The project concerns large scale CO₂ shipping, with particular references to the development of more efficient, reliable and safe operations to decarbonize power sectors and industry with a higher degree of flexibility. The fact that it is an experimental approach that requires me to upgrade the existing UKCCSRC Pact facility makes it even more fascinating. Understanding the effects that different impurities components exhibit in different parts of the shipping chain (e.g. loading, unloading, and ship voyage) is an essential part of my work. Being shipping experience and know-how at the centre of my project, it is essential for me to engage with industries operating in the ‘front line’ to learn from their experiences – such as the already established LPG and LNG shipping protocols.

The opportunity offered in the ‘career development: an industrial prospective’ is therefore absolutely great to widen our thinking beyond academia and have the opportunity to see how things work out there in the real world, and how industry and academia can cooperate together to maximize results and achievements. Having the opportunity to hear about the experiences of people who have worked in both ‘fields’ made me aware of the different nature of the work and mind-set. It is interesting to notice how often prominent individuals in UKCCSRC have an industrial career at their backs before they decided to influence the spheres of academia and, equally, how PhD graduates are increasingly hired by industry especially in R&D positions. What I could gather from this interesting session is that industry and academia are in need of each other to further establish and widen the potential of CCS in the UK: the industrial experience provides with technical ability and economic sustainability, whilst research at academia can be maximized to impact on the local and national population and investigate potential routes that could be transformed into established processes in the future. I would definitely want even more opportunities and collaboration with industries, perhaps some stronger collaborations in the field of CCS in the future.

>>Get the slides from the biannual meeting