Archive, Event

A Day of Knowledge Co-Creation in Oxford

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By Alisdair Ritchie
PETRAS Impact Champion

PETRAS held a demonstrator knowledge co-creation day on 16th April.

60 PETRAS collaborators from across the UK descended upon the stunning 19th Century Grade II* listed Oxford Town Hall. Their goal was to define and refine what the final PETRAS demonstrators will look like. These demonstrators will be a key focal point of the final year of PETRAS demonstrating knowledge-in-use of PETRAS outputs. These outputs when merged with the real-world applications of our industry partners will aim to prove to show the value of the work that PETRAS does.

The day was about interaction and collaboration between industry partners, who made up around a third of the participants, and their academic colleagues in PETRAS. The day proved to be an effective demonstration of why it is industry and academia working together which can help deliver the real-world solutions to the problems that tomorrow will face.

The day began with presentations from each project describing what areas of PETRAS they were aiming to bring to life in a demonstrator and inform the other participants what they might be able to help with. The aim was to set the scene and bring to life the propositions.

After lunch participants moved into the co-creation phase of the day with many moving around freely and adding their views and opinions to more than one project. New ideas were formed, new partnerships were created and whilst the core of the projects that began the day remained, the impact that the projects were able to create was enhanced greatly. At the end of the day, as participants headed back to the Oxford Spires Hotel for a well-earned dinner, conversation remained firmly in co-creation mode and in some cases this mode carried on late into the evening.

The following day each of these demonstrators had the opportunity to present their work a final time to an expert panel of judges. This presentation was the culmination of several months of work and drew together the combined expertise of numerous PETRAS projects and partners and as such, it is no surprise that every demonstrator performed with excellence.