Where can interdisciplinary collaborations with engineering solutions make the largest impact? Apply to participate in the RAEng Frontiers Symposia – if successful you can bid for seed funding to take forward a collaborative project established at the event, ensuring that partnerships are built to last.

Attendance at a Frontiers symposia is by invitation only following a rigorous selection process. Applicants can self nominate or nominate an other person for a specific event or make a general application.

Apply to attend – Royal Academy of Engineering (raeng.org.uk)

The goal of the symposia is to facilitate introductions and collaboration between outstanding researchers, innovators and practitioners working in the international development field.

Whilst working jointly on concepts for engineering for development, attendees share new techniques and approaches across disciplinary boundaries and build lasting connections. Delegates will be approximately 0-20 years post-doc, or have equivalent experience in industry, presenting a great opportunity to establish valuable contacts with the next generation of engineering leaders and beyond.

Symposium content and themes

We face a global biodiversity crisis, with unprecedented and accelerating rates of species extinctions and degradation of habitats. This will have grave impacts on the worlds human population dependent on the ecosystems services they provide.  However, biodiversity is a broad theme with many challenges encompassed within it. There is a need to simultaneously identify the major challenges faced (such as those defined by the Sustainable Development Goals) and the areas where interdisciplinary environmental engineering and science can have the greatest impact to maximise the benefits gained relative to costs – “maximising the bang for the buck”.

It is recognised that the global biodiversity emergency affects lower- and middle-income countries the hardest. There are potential conflicts between conservation efforts and resource exploitation that can often negatively impact the communities in LMICs and undermine efforts of development.

This symposium will scope out those challenges that would most benefit from engineering solutions, as part of interdisciplinary collaborations, and explore this within the context of the themes: Marine, Freshwater and Terrestrial.

Each theme will be explored from a research, policy and industry perspective, facilitating dialogue from a wide range of disciplines, including engineering, environmental science and management, social sciences, and economics and governance.

Event Chairs

Paul Kemp, Professor of Ecological Engineering, University of Southampton

Paul Kemp is a Professor of Ecological Engineering and director of the International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research at University of Southampton and founding editor in chief of the IAHR Journal of Ecohydraulics. As a result of his interest in sustainable infrastructure and the built environment he is also director of the University of Southampton Future Towns Innovation Hub, the EPSRC funded Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Sustainable Infrastructure Systems, and the UKCRIC CDT in Sustainable Infrastructure for Cities.

Paul’s interests relate to the development of more environmentally friendly water, energy and food systems, and in particular sustainable fisheries management.  His research focuses on the application of behavioural ecology to understanding and solving challenges in water and energy engineering, particularly how the physical environment (e.g. hydrodynamics and acoustics) influence the behaviour and physiological performance of fish, and how manipulation of that environment by engineering means can be used to mitigate for negative impacts of water and energy resource development. Specific applications include fish pass and screening design, assigning compensation flow regimes, and improving habitat restoration strategies.

*Second chair to be announced

 Symposium Format

Virtual symposium

Delegates meet and work together on the Frontiers’ virtual platform, where they watch pre-recorded presentations, engage in theme related content, network with other delegates and collaborate on seed funding.

This leads to 2 days of live event in the second week where delegates participate in breakout rooms to workshop the ideas being discussed on the platform.

Participants are obliged to participate in every session to maximise the opportunity to make new contacts and build collaborative relationships. To ensure there is a balance of formal and informal networking opportunities, informal networking will be organised.

Post event funding

Following the symposium, there will be an opportunity to be awarded up to £20,000 in seed funding for an idea generated from collaborations created during the event.