The key benefits for participants and the communities they work with are:
- Collaboration in research, innovation and engineering for development.
- The transfer of new techniques and approaches across disciplinary boundaries.
- The establishment of contacts among the next generation of engineering leaders and experts tackling global challenges.
Attending a symposium
Eligible participants are selected to form a group of around 60 emerging UK and global engineering and international development leaders from industry, NGOs, the public sector and academia to discuss:
- Pioneering technical work
- Cutting-edge research for international development
Participants are selected to attend based on the suitability of their application in regards to the upcoming symposia theme.
We aim to make the symposia as inclusive as possible and support people with different access requirements to participate in the symposia, both in-person and virtually. If there is something we can do to support your participation, please get in touch to discuss your individual needs.
What happens at a symposium?
Frontiers symposia are designed to collate interdisciplinary and international networks around sustainable development themes, offering fantastic opportunities for network building. We have trialled three innovative formats so far, each offering a slightly different format and toolkit for creating connections.
In person symposia
Frontiers events have taken place around the world connecting different organisations and offering a collaborative space for peers to interact. Over three days a global cohort of 60 delegates are invited to collaborative workshop sessions alongside informal and structured networking activities and context-setting field trips (as appropriate for the event theme).
Virtual symposia
A couple of the previous symposia have been hosted on a virtual platform that allows delegates to engage in theme-related content on-demand; network with other delegates via virtual coffee breaks, messaging and chat functions; and work together on seed funding using collaborative online tools.
Hybrid symposia
The first hybrid Frontiers event took place in March 2022, combining both virtual and in-person elements for a truly interactive hybrid experience. All delegates were invited to engage with content in an on-demand, fully virtual format, ahead of two days of live sessions where 40 in-person delegates were joined by 45 virtual delegates from all over the world.
Future and past events
The format for future events will be detailed in the upcoming symposia section.
Details on all previous Frontiers events can be found in the past symposia section.
Post event funding
At the end of each symposium participants will have the opportunity to apply for seed funding to help build on collaborative partnerships established at the event. Funding is also available through the Frontiers Champion awards, to help support network building beyond the symposia, and the Follow-on Funding grants that help scale up seed funded projects into fully-formed collaborative research projects.