Theme 1 workshop sparks new discussions

After the scientific and technical presentations and discussions at this lively workshop, the chairs were moved into a ring so that the attendees could have a face to face group discussion on NAMRIP and how best to meet the needs of the community it serves.

Professor Leighton outlined recent developments, congratulating Claire Jackson and Dario Carugo on their prize wins and noting how well many NAMRIP members contributed to making the recent Science and Engineering day at the University, a success for the 6000 members of the public who attended. He talked about the planned conference in July and the degree to which the current system of holding a meeting like this each month for one or other theme was working.

There was a good discussion which agreed on continuing the current arrangement for Theme meetings but perhaps condensing two 'All-Theme' meetings (which occur every fifth month) into the summer conference (with prizes to encourage particular groups, such as a prize for the best PhD student poster, a prize for the most accessible but rigorous oral presentation, a prize for the best 2-minute video).

Prof Leighton announced that, to assist members of disciplines that had not submitted significantly to the pump priming competitions, the 4th NAMRA pump priming competition will be only for projects that collaborate with researchers in business, law, humanities, maths and social sciences, in order to assist those colleagues to engage in projects to combat AMR and encourage Infection Prevention. The 5th competition will be announced a week after and would be open to projects in all topics.

After this, a smaller group (Professors Read, Keevil and Leighton) met to discuss how best the University might obtain the infrastructure and facilities that would be needed to build upon the growing collaboration between the hospital and the university in NAMRIP and other topics.