“What's helpful is the visibility at ISIS and in the neutron community. It's helping me move into new areas; it's made starting that process easier," says William Sharratt, from the University of Liverpool.
Jennifer Johnstone-Hack, from the University of Sheffield, agrees. “It's really good so far, particularly for networking: I was invited to the UK Neutron & Muon Science and User Meeting this year, I'm more involved in the UK neutron community, I've met with the IMAT team," she says. “I really enjoyed the user meeting, particularly finding out what's happening at the national facilities. They're an incredible resource, and the springboard award gave me a boost in momentum to go and start using those facilities."
Shurui Miao from the University of Oxford has had a similar experience; “[The springboard award] is a fantastic opportunity. It brings credibility – it's easier to approach people. ISIS has access to an extensive toolkit of experimental techniques. Oxford doesn't have a specific x-ray scattering setup I needed but I talked to the ISIS team who were able to advise and helped me to go to Diamond… The springboard award provided those connections."
The Springboard awards include funding for travel, which can be hard to find from elsewhere. “It can be hard to fund softer things, particularly conference travel, so the award is very helpful…. Getting my name out there in the neutron community, that's really valuable," says Will.
For Shurui, the award enabled him to attend a major international conference. “I used the travel money to attend the International Association of Colloidal Interface Science conference. It happens once every three years and this year was in Canada."
As well as support for travel to conferences, the Springboard awards come with an additional £1000 for consumables. Shurui has already put that to use to support his research on ionic liquids and their molecular mimics. “The £1000 travel costs and £1000 consumables costs at my career stage are really crucial. My samples are relatively large volumes and deuterated. The cost of sample prep is quite high, so the consumables element of the springboard award was really helpful for that," he explains.
The award also includes a community engagement element, enabling Jennifer to build a new resource for her research community. “I'm building an open-access online repository of cell designs," she explains. The fuel cells and electrolysers Jennifer studies rely on complex engineering, but “there is next to no information about cell design out there," she says. Although established research teams may have their own designs, others have no access to designs, which can hold back their research. Jennifer has begun building an open access repository and is trying to galvanise the community to share their designs with others.
It's also helping William spread the word to colleagues in Liverpool who may not be aware of how they could use neutrons in their own research. “At Liverpool, there are not many other neutron users in my soft matter area. I'm using the award to help support other users. Other people have some really interesting science problems."
You can find details of how to apply, and the benefits of winning, here: ISIS ISIS Springboard Awards
