Research Conference 2024: Strength in Diversity

The University’s annual research conference welcomed an array of projects, including those from professionals stepping forward from being traditionally seen as ‘backroom’ teams.

This year’s theme was Strength in Diversity and featured a diverse range of inspirational and impactful research activities across University of Northampton (UON).

Alongside the talks and workshops during the two-day event, academics tested their editing skills with rounds of Pecha Kucha presentations, for which they covered 20 slides, spending just 20 seconds on each one.

Also showcased was the work and value of technicians at UON. Since December 2023, the University has officially acknowledged how they ensure research and teaching at Waterside proceed smoothly by signing the Technician Commitment.

Launched in 2017 by the Science Council and the Gatsby Foundation, the Commitment ensures visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians; it has triggered a cultural change at higher education and research institutions across the UK.

Dr Michael Cauchi is one member of that community and a Technician Demonstrator in UON’s Computing subjects. His presentation covered how technicians engage in research themselves.

Dr Cauchi talked about how his dual role of the technician/demonstrator includes more than maintaining hardware and software. He underlined how he and his fellow ‘TechDem’ colleagues are skilled professionals who also problem-solve, support students with technical advice and engage in school outreach work.

Dr Cauchi says: “The aim of my presentation was to encourage academic attendees to more closely work with technicians and take advantage of our experiences, knowledge and skills. Given how the input of ‘TechDems’ is becoming increasingly important to complete research, we hope that our work is, correspondingly, more often officially recognised, for instance being included as co-authors for publications and funding applications.”

Dr Lewis Collins, Technician Demonstrator in Life Sciences, spoke about Advanced Imaging (enhanced techniques that give more information about samples such as gene expression and the how cells are structured) at the University.

Dr Collins introduced the different imaging equipment his team uses at Waterside, including a range of microscopes and flow cytometry (measuring the number and characteristics of cells) at Waterside and showed examples of UON research with images captured by science academics using those tools.

Dr Collins adds: “We’re very proud of the University’s commitment to exhibiting the skills and knowledgebase of our excellent technical staff. This has been a brilliant opportunity to showcase some of that and we’re thankful to the organisers for including us.

“My experience at Northampton has been superb and many of the academics have acknowledged the great work of our technical colleagues. It was a real joy to share the stage with academics and PhD students and hear about their research.”

Other activities during the Conference – led by Professor Lorna Jowett, Professor Lee Machado and UON’s Graduate School – included announcing the winners of our Graduate School’s Images of Research competition.

Researchers were tasked to produce an original image – photograph or artwork – to illustrate the University’s research diversity.

Dr Collins won with Sonika Divakar – Associate Lecturer (Health Studies) and PhD Student in Life Sciences – for ‘Interstitial Images’.

Also announced was the winner of the 3-minute thesis presentation competition for postgraduate researchers – Charlotte Marshall won the judges’ vote for ‘A jigsaw of curious things’ for which she gave an overview of the creative methodology she has adopted to explore studying at level 8/PhD in England. Charlotte is set to repeat her presentation at the annual East Midlands Doctoral Network conference, to be held on 25 September.

The full programme for the Research Conference can be found here.