X-CITED Communities of Practice
The Communities of Practice (CoPs)
created by the X-CITED programme will act as hubs for RTPs working in similar disciplinary areas to network and enable sharing of experiences, expertise, and best practice. They will also provide a channel to disseminate information, raise RTP-specific concerns, and develop a comprehensive GW4-wide technical capability register which is visible to all stakeholders.
CoPs will provide peer support, identify skills gaps and training and development needs tailored to the cohort, and will hopefully become self-supporting to extend well beyond the 3 year X-CITED programme.
The CoPs will:
- Provide a platform for RTPs to showcase their work, highlight their skills and share their expertise.
- Identify, review and develop RTP training opportunities across GW4.
- Support collaboration by building relationships across technical teams.
- Showcase the expertise of RTPs through landscaping activities, demonstrations and presentations.
- Offer unique training opportunities that are created through discussions with the RTP community.
- Support development of the Talent Bank staff associated with their CoP.
The CoPs will cover four broad technical areas across the breadth of the engineering and physical sciences domain within GW4 institutions:
1. Digital RTPs
- This CoP will bring together RTPs working in research software engineering, data science, High Performance Computing (HPC) and other related disciplines. The CoP will provide a space for RTPs to engage in activities together, ranging from BoF sessions and hackathons through to mini-conferences and knowledge sharing.
- Some techniques and tools associated with this group are VCS, CI/CD, software development and testing/training.
2. Material & Structural Characterisation
- This CoP will comprise those working in mechanical testing. Examples of this may include material characterisation through methods of tension, compression, torsion, fatigue and other similar and related techniques, along with large- and small-scale static and dynamic testing of structures and assemblies.
- Alongside the base techniques and methodologies there will be a focus on experimental set-up and data acquisition.
3. Chemical Characterisation
- This CoP will bring together RTPs working across all aspects of characterisation, monitoring and analysis for any chemical substances and materials. Some RTPs might already feel a strong identification with the area of chemical characterisation, such as mass spectrometrists and NMR spectroscopists, but we want to involve all RTPs who have a link to chemical characterisation.
- Techniques aligned with ‘chemical characterisation’ include, but are not limited to, X-ray diffraction, chromatography, optical spectroscopy and microscopy. The CoP will help identify training requirements and keep each other updated on our learnings and best practice.
4. Microscopy & Nanomaterials
- This CoP will encompass those working in areas of design, synthesis, analysis and testing of nanomaterials, including areas of research in catalysis, semiconductors and the study of atoms (either experimentally or computationally).
- Techniques aligned with ‘nanofabrication’ are electron microscopy, nanostructure synthesis (e.g. catalysis, epitaxial films…), gas and liquid phase catalyst testing, computational studies of atoms/nanoparticles, Crystallography, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, light-current-voltage-wavelength measurements.
Upcoming CoPs:
- Digital RTPs
- Material & Structural Characterisation
Both coming early 2025!
For further information, or to put yourself on the distribution list for one or more of the Communities of Practice, please contact the X-CITED team at x-cited@gw4.ac.uk.
