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NCEO Researchers' Forum 2018

NCEO Researchers’ Forum 5-6 February 2018

Thirty-two people from NCEO attended the 2018 Researchers’ Forum, held at College Court in Leicester. This year’s theme was improving and adapting presentation skills for different audiences.

Training in presentation skills was given by Sara Thornton and John Hammond of Weathertrending.com – both experienced BBC presenters.

They began with an ice-breaker, asking us to promote something in twenty seconds. Exercises gradually built up during the day, until finally everyone gave a 2 minute science talk. Delegates were encouraged to think about their body language and voice projection, and to think of a simple message to highlight in their delivery. Sara and John gave gentle, constructive criticism, and by the end of the day everyone’s presentation skills had improved considerably, and we had all had fun! Kelvin Choi, Ewan Pinnington and Simon Proud were selected by Sara and John as best presenters, with Ewan voted the overall winner by fellow delegates.

Researchers' Forum 2018 presentation winners

We all enjoyed College Court’s hospitality, and after a delicious dinner, several people spent a fun evening winding down at the local Megazone (lazerquest).

The second day of the Forum was led by Briony Turner from Space4Climate, who arranged a workshop on presenting science to a targeted industrial audience.

Researchers' Forum 2018 Workshop leader Briony Turner with Divisional Director Peter Jan van Leeuwen

Delegates were grouped into four teams, and had to present NCEO science to audiences from Ecobuild; Geo Business; Digital Health; and Financial Services.

Researchers' Forum 2018 worksho

The presentations were judged by visitors Carmine Maffei from the Leicester Innovation Hub, Stephen Harris, Journalist from The Conversation, Zof Stott from NCEO and Assimila and NCEO’s Divisional Director of Data Assimilation, Peter Jan van Leeuwen. The presentation given by Jemima Tabeart for her group Lucy Ventress, Lea Oljaca and Daniel Fisher on Digital Health was judged as the best.

Researchers' Forum 2018 workshop winners

Briony outlined her call for volunteers to become Climate Space Data Ambassadors – to present NCEO to industry, policymakers or government representatives, either by giving talks at conferences or attending trade stands at exhibitions or events. Two people have already signed up. If you would like to do so please follow this link or contact Briony Turner B.D.Turner@the-iea.org.

Throughout the two days we held poster sessions, and prizes were awarded to Jemima Tabeart for her poster on “Correlated observation errors in variational data assimilation” and Simon Proud for his poster on “Detecting hazards to aviation via satellite: storms and clear air turbulence”.

Researchers' Forum 2018 poster winners

We had a full, packed two days. I enjoyed it tremendously and would like to thank everyone who attended for working so hard. At the end of the two days it was evident that everyone’s presentation skills had improved. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again at the National Earth Observation Conference in Birmingham 4-7 September 2018: details here.

Jan Fillingham