IHE celebrates the UCL Festival of Early-Stage Researchers

At the Institute of Healthcare Engineering, we wanted to get involved and shine a light on our fabulous early-career researcher community. 

Overcoming failure with ADAPT to Thrive

We kicked the week off on Monday morning with the Academic Careers Office and ‘ADAPT to Thrive’ – one of our most popular event series! ADAPT to Thrive events break down the concept of ‘failure’ in academia – life’s all about taking risks and learning from setbacks. 

We were joined by two senior academics, Professor Dan Stoyanov (Director, Wellcome/ESPRC Centre for Interventional Sciences) and Professor Christina Pagel (Director, Clinical Operational Research Unit) who spoke about their personal experiences of overcoming failure.

Both Christina and Dan described their non-linear path getting to where they are today – and how things don’t always turn out as expected. For Christina, when her hopes of becoming an astronaut were dashed, she realised it was an opportunity to use her expertise in a different way; “I realised I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to do healthcare”.

“Not everyone with a PhD becomes a professor. There are other options and you can be just as happy – perhaps even more successful!” – Professor Dan Stoyanov

Navigating interdisciplinary science as an early-career researcher

On Wednesday, we held an interactive session for our ECRs who work at the intersection of engineering, technology and healthcare. 

Featuring case study talks from researchers across UCL, we explored the key skills that will help ECRs develop their career path, how they can create impact, and how to craft a unique research profile. 

This second session was organised by the Institute’s very own group for ECRs – our Careers Delivery Group.

Join our ECR community

Our Careers Delivery Group is open to anyone at UCL and members meet once a month to plan activities that support the ECR community. It's a great opportunity to network, build your CV and grow your management and leadership skills.

If you're interested in joining, please send us an email introducing yourself.

Finally, we’d like to give a special shout out to our IHE Impact Fellow, Rupy Matharu for presenting her research during the Festival Week. Rupy has been working with the UCL-Ventura CPAP team to look at sterilisation options for the equipment in developing countries. She gave her presentation, ‘Rethinking plastic waste and optimising equipment sterilisation during the COVID-19 pandemic’ as part of an early-stage researcher showcase talk.