Joel Posthuma de Boer writes about cohort 3's recent risky business...

On April 4th, members of Cohort 3 joined up with students from three other CDTs at the impressive Cumberland Lodge in Windsor to participate in Authentity III, in conjunction with Rolls Royce and the Bloodhound project.

Participants enjoyed a combination of inspiring master classes in how to gain confidence in public speaking and how a successful team operates, and team building exercises designed to push them out of their comfort zone. Needless to say these were far from the usual droll team building exercises that early career researchers have come to expect from too many a human resource exercise.

Most excitingly students working in teams were given one of five problems, inspired by the real day to day decisions made by engineers, managers and scientists working for Rolls Royce or on the Bloodhound project. This year the problems focused on a number of aspects of risk and how it affects the decisions that Rolls Royce and Bloodhound make.

All groups prepared and delivered excellent presentations and videos to a panel of CDT directors and Rolls Royce representatives detailing a number of their interesting and thought provoking ideas. Cohort 3 left not only with a deeper understanding of how risk affects the workings of large projects, but also a better idea of how to work effectively within a team. They also gained much more confidence in their ability to communicate their ideas that will surely benefit them throughout their careers.