C-DICE: Postdoctoral development for a net-zero society

C-DICE tackles two distinct but interrelated urgent challenges that are central to the delivery of the UK’s Industrial Strategy (IS), and which demand a collaborative model for Research Development and Innovation:

1. How we build and sustain the advanced skills base required to create a pipeline of world-class talent for the Infrastructure, Cities and Energy (IC&E) sectors.
2. How to accelerate progress towards a net-zero society by 2050.

Led by Loughborough University in partnership with the Universities of Birmingham and Cranfield, C-DICE brings together 18 higher education institutions from across the Energy Research Accelerator (ERA) and the UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC), as well as industry and other stakeholders.

C-DICE aims to support a diverse pipeline of talent with the skills and knowledge to address the critical challenges in delivering sustainable infrastructure, cities and energy supply. This is achieved through the development of postdoctoral researchers, providing access to funding and world class facilities, and afford them membership of an exclusive collaborative network uniquely positioned to realise the net zero-carbon challenge.

The programme delivers the following to achieve these objectives:

1. Bespoke training and development activities, around career development, net zero skills and UKCRIC and ERA facilities.
2. Providing funded placements and secondments with academic and industry partners. In collaboration with various industry partners, C-DICE offers postdoctoral researchers opportunities to pursue secondments to develop their skills.
3. Research Sandpits - placing researchers in multi-disciplinary teams to generate novel solutions to the net zero-carbon challenges. A sandpit creates networks of exclusively postdoctoral researchers to generate collaborative research ideas that can be further developed via seedcorn funding. Awards of up to £30000 are available for the best proposals developed during each sandpit.
4. Delivering knowledge exchange events to maximise and disseminate the outcomes and benefits.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

Ensuring that all researchers can access appropriate development opportunities, and that an inclusive culture is created is a priority for C-DICE. EDI is embedded in all C-DICE activities, enabling the research community to address far more challenging and complex problems that creating and sustaining low energy, net zero-carbon infrastructure and cities presents. This will span fundamental research, applied technologies and policy developments and will together tackle the most significant challenges of our age.