The first NEON Q-celebration!

Written by Youn and Tessa

We would like to introduce the new collaboration and reflection approach this year at NEON: “Q-celebration”. At this quarterly event, NEON PhD candidates present and spark their cross-disciplinary collaboration research.

The Q-celebration are created to work towards our next Demo 3, do see the posts on Demo 2 or Demo 1 if you like.

We enjoyed our first session Friday January 13th, through a number of workshops and brainstorming on how to improve and organize cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Program 1: Place for experiencing cross-disciplinary collaboration

The idea of cross-disciplinary collaboration might sound like just cool teamwork, but it is difficult. Setting a common goal, navigating tension arising from group dynamics and overcoming specialized disciplinary languages can challenge the collaboration progress. Even just starting a collaboration can be scary. Thus, two PhD candidates Youn Choi (WP10) and Willem Klok (WP3) facilitated a workshop where NEON PhDs can actually practice how to tackle such issues. During the workshop, NEON PhD candidates were grouped based on their common interests regardless of their WPs and scientific disciplines. The cross-disciplinary PhD teams conducted small-collaboration projects, under the theme, ‘Let’s just experience it.’. Each team considered problems and solutions for their ‘Living Twin Society’. Together with the visual story-making the group-ideation process was fostered. See some results in the pictures below.


Program 2: Group reflection

After the workshop, with the moderation of Tessa Leferink (WP10), NEON PhD candidates reflected on great collaborations in the past. These could be personal (preparing a music gig) or professional (writing a LinkedIn blog with another researcher). Together various building blocks were defined, including clear communication, a shared end goal with a deadline and sufficient resources. These ideas were then used to brainstorm about various collaboration projects we want to have in the future amongst NEON candidates.

Moving forward

We practiced cross-disciplinary collaboration and shared our stories about collaboration in NEON. We are looking forward to collaborating more and better with our NEON colleagues the coming quarter and the next Q-celebration.

The next Q-celebration will take place on April 21. This celebration will focus on NEON DEMO 3.

NEON DEMO 3 will take place at the Ecomobiel/Vakbeurs Energie trade fair in October. NEON will be there for three days. At the Q-celebration, we want to make a plan for our presence at the fair, which will be much bigger than last year.

We would love for both industry partners and PIs to be involved in the demo! If you’re a partner and you are interested in representing your organization at the fair, please contact Mixel.

If you’re a PI and you’re interested in contributing to the demo, for example by giving a presentation or by participating in a panel discussion or some other format (suggestions welcome), please join us at the next Q-celebration on April 21!