Objective: To provide opportunities for (very) early career researchers to engage in offshore renewable energy research, especially undergraduates with protected characteristics that are underrepresented in the offshore renewable energy research and industry sectors (e.g. women)
Led by: Mike Graham, Imperial College
Each of the participating universities should host one or more summer internships directed in the first instance at female undergraduates who are suitably qualified, the numbers of students per year to be determined from the amount of funding available for this within the programme. 2 internships (1 per year: 2018 & 2019); each year group will have a kick‐off meeting in London and will take place in a Summer school at end of internship, exchanging experience and presenting result.
The intention is that if possible these internships should be held by female students, but if not reasonably possible in any instance then opened to male students. The students should be in the later part of their study for a first degree in an appropriate subject, usually a branch of engineering, but applied maths or science would be eligible where there is a strong intention to convert to engineering at postgraduate level. The interns may come from any institution including the one holding the internship. We at Imperial College are taking advice on how to advertise these internships in order to comply with the law regarding discrimination and will pass this information on, but probably institutions will prefer to follow their own regulations for filling the internships.
Each summer during the period of the project (in practice probably 2 summers) Imperial College will host a one day (or 1.5 day depending) induction meeting. The Imperial College project staff will be present and staff from the other institutions are invited to attend if they wish. At the end of their project the interns will be required to attend the programme summer school held at end Aug/early Sept that year (Exeter 2018, Cranfield 2019). All the interns of that year will attend a Summer School in which they will present their work and have the opportunity to network with the other ECRs. This will give them the opportunity to make a presentation of their project work to a wider audience of researchers and to network with other researchers and more senior staff as well as benefiting from the summer school material. It might also be appropriate for an RA or other staff representative of each institution to give a presentation of their main project research work in the programme to the interns.
Participating institutions will supervise one or more interns for what is nominally an 8 ‐ 10 week project over each summer vac (2 of these probably) and what the cost of doing this will be per intern project. The assumption is that the interns will be paid at the University’s standard rate for u/g internship. Also a rough costing should be given for the student’s travel and subsistence to attend the group meeting in London. Imperial College can arrange some accommodation in the halls of residence given enough notice and if that will be required I can get costs. The internship projects should be related (reasonably) to the ORE‐China program.
