Two Wales DTC students Sam Hubble and Erin Roberts (along with fellow PhD student Catherine Cherry) helped to organise the very successful Tyndall Centre PhD conference ‘Climate Transitions: Connecting People, Planet and Place’. 80 delegates from institutions across the UK and further afield attended the conference – held at Cardiff University 3rd-5th April.

Professor James
Scourse of Bangor University delivering the keynote speech

The conference was a resounding success, with a range of high quality presentations from PhD students on topics ranging from the visual impact of wind turbines to the effects of climate change on Ghanaian farming, and from community energy schemes to modelling the role that tax policies can have upon urban density construction. In addition to being presented with insights into the diverse inter-disciplinary climate research that is being undertaken across the world, delegates also had the opportunity to network and socialise with people from a range of backgrounds and to forge new research links, which we hope will be continued through the conference’s online presence, twitter feed @TyndallPhDConf and LinkedIn page.

A dinner debate entitled ‘Fracking with the future: Is there a role for shale gas in a sustainable energy transition?’ prompted much discussion on a topic that is receiving increasing media attention, while a panel debate on the question ‘Do climate researchers have a responsibility to lead sustainable lives?’ forced delegates to think about themselves as researchers and citizens, and reflect upon the range of potential positive and negative impacts of their research.

Finally, Dr Warren Pearce of Nottingham University presented a science communication workshop, where delegates were invited to enter our blog competition. Look out for the winning entry which we hope will be published on the Guardian website in the near future.