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To be honest, it was a very good course. Everything was well balanced, from the content of the lectures (chemistry, modelling, recycling policy) to the type of learning (lectures and labs). I would have personally liked a bit more on pure chemistry (similar to Dr Melanie Loveridge's lecture, which was top notch), but again, this is just me and I think it is relevant to know a bit of everything about batteries.

Regarding the labs, the demonstrators were fantastic, really helpful and nice. Particularly the battery testing one, who answered every single questions we asked (about anything regarding batteries), despite bombarding him with queries.

For the accommodation and food, everything was right, comfortable and pleasant. For dinner, I guess a nice glass of wine would have been good, but this is just a detail. The good food, teas, coffees, pastries etc allowed us to fully focus on the course, and this was crucial.

In my opinion, it will be hard to remove anything and condense it more. The only improvements I could suggest is maybe extend the breaks between the lectures. Indeed, I wanted to talk to some of the lecturers after their talk, but there was not enough time and it did not allow for proper networking. Maybe they could stay for the tea break and/or lunch/dinner. This, for example, was perfect for the project lead talks during dinner: having enough time with them really allowed some nice chats.

In addition, the week was very intense and dense. 15min breaks in between the last two lectures in the morning (hence allowing more networking), 30min longer lunch break and 10min established breaks in middle of the lab sessions would have been perfect. Like the feeling we had in Newcastle: intense but a bit lighter. But again, just suggesting, because there was a lot to see and learn.

Overall great, definitely would recommend to newcomers in the battery fields. Perfect for 1st year PhD students, but maybe not for 2nd year PhD students, as the lab procedures would have already been seen. Congratulations to the organisers, lecturers and demonstrators.

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Overall a very insightful week. I learned a lot, things that were both applicable to my project and things that were not. The latter being an important point because I think it is good to get an appreciation of other aspects of batteries, even if it is not directly relevant, whether that be legislation, engineering or chemistry.

Stucture I think the week was arranged very smoothly, and I had very little to improve on the structure. The lab order could have been organised slightly better - although I think that was going to be addressed anyway. Dinner would have been better started at 5pm and to finish in less than 2 hours, this would have been useful so that people could catch the speaker after the meal, and also so that we had some down time to do some work or exercise!

Timings Most people stuck perfectly within the limit, but some presenters went over time for their presentation or dinner speech. I think it is important to stick to timings as there were times I wanted to ask a question but due to it further eating into breaks or dinners, I chose not to.

Course I think it would be better to offer the battery school in autumn, after people have just started their PhDs because they would have a lot more to glean from the week. Although I still learned a lot anyway! It would have also been good to have some more Faraday affiliated PhDs on so we could mix with them during this week!

N.B. Wine with dinner would have been nice! That £248m will have to get used up somehow!

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A packed week which was full of interesting talks, some really useful and relevant to my project and others which were more general but still interesting to know. The lab sessions were great - it was good to see the manufacturing process and go through the different stages of creating the cells and then testing them. It was very useful to get handouts during the lab as this is something we can take away with us and refer back to at a later date. The dinner talks were good, and it was great to have the opportunity to chat with the staff and make contacts. Also the food was absolutely insane.

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Accommodation: Top class, good food and nice beds
Lectures: Learnt alot on the lectures. Speakers were very enthusiastic. Was tiring but the end of the week. Maybe only two lectures a day. Good topic choice for each day.
Labs: Coin cell, coating and Forensics were very fun. Good practice and learnt a lot. Microscopy was slow at times. Cell testing was very relevant but not very interesting or fun.
Dinners: Very tasty. The speaker could provide tips as well. And they could sit in the middle of the table.
Company: Right good

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Really interesting week with a huge variety of topics covered. It was very useful to have an overview of different areas within battery research which I hadn't previously considered. Fantastic overview of batteries and battery research.

Wide range of topics covered and wide range of labs to get an appreciation of what other PhD students are getting up to / what methods are available.

Overall the length of the days was good (I think shortening the course with the same material may be a bit too much). There arent any sessions which I would take out as the week gave a great overview of batteries and the current landscape.

It might have been useful to have a slide pack printed out prior to the week to make notes as we went but that is probably a personal preference.

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What I liked most about the week was the opportunity to see how battery research is done more from an industry perspective. It was great to learn about the research issues they face, and both the labs and lectures helped with learning about this. Over all this was a great way to broaden our knowledge of the battery industry from materials, modelling and safety perspectives.

Would be good to have the lectures before the week started, but I think the content of the lectures and labs would prove useful for most people.

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In general, talks went to a good level of detail in the various subjects. This meant that they remained engaging even when not directly relevant to my research. Computational talks were hard to follow at times as an experimentalist, but I don’t know if that could be remedied without compromising on detail.

Lab sessions were fantastically taught in general and a great opportunity to get hands-on experience on the engineering side of battery research. The ordering of the sessions wasn’t particularly logical, but I’m not sure there is anyway to fix this with so many groups.

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Was a really great week overall! The workshops were very useful and a great opportunity to ask loads of questions. The talks were also a super opportunity to learn about a broad range of topics and to see where my research fits in. Priya was also great! And the accommodation and food was 👌. It was a very dense week, so perhaps a little more rest time could be good. But I don’t know what I would take out. And there were also some talks that were more interesting than others, purely because they were more related to my research. But still good to learn about other areas!

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It would be nice to provide the slides and lecture material before hand, that way we can annotate slides as we go along and it should be a better form of note taking.

Also a better description of lab work sessions or pre-lab theory background just to get a better sense of the session would be good too although some may find it cumbersome.

Also for lab sessions if the demonstrator was someone with direct experience for the lab that would be good eg coin cell making leader mainly worked on pouch cells for his real job.

Hospitality and food was great

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The battery school provided a good basis to build upon. It was run by good, engaged speakers who were obviously passionate about their field.
Perhaps it would have been useful to start the dinners earlier so that events could have taken place after dinner.

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The talks gave a good general overview of the battery world, and I learnt something new in most of the sessions. There was a bit of repetition throughout the week but in general was definitely useful 

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The talks gave a good general overview of the battery world, and I learnt something new in most of the sessions. There was a bit of repetition throughout the week but in general was definitely useful 

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Overall a very good overview of batteries

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Overall a very good overview of batteries

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I liked the variability of industrial and research lectures. Some of the lectures were less relevant to my specific research area but I believe overall these still benefited my general understanding of the entire field of batteries which is also of the utmost importance.

The lab sessions were very engaging and covered a mixture of programming, theoretical and practical skills and I think these should remain as they are (possibly with a break included).

The break between labs and dinner was a strange length, not long enough to do anything but too long to do nothing. However this is a minimal issue and I can not think of what would be changed to make this any better. Hospitality in general was top notch (maybe more water with dinner!

Overall a well organised and enjoyable week that developed both overall understanding of batteries and specific understanding of the techniques that could aid my research in the future in addition to an industrial perspective.

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I found the whole course really useful - specially the mixture of Lab and lecture.
A couple if more lectures on electrochemistry would have been useful.
I addition I think the notes should be given in printed format at the start of the course — this would allow for notes to be taken in the context of the lecture.

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The battery school has provided fundamental

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Events in general were very packed, some lectures have minor overlaps which could save time and allow more free time as networking and dinner tended to run late. The course should make it known if PDF’s or materials will be provided, and each lab session should work off a set curriculum and provide some sort of hand out to help us review material in the future

Increased your knowledge base

- Good set of courses and lab work, generally satisfied by the level of knowledge provided by demonstrators and lecturers.

Furthered your practical skills

-yes, provided a good overview of typical practical techniques used in manufacturing

Taught you about techniques for the development and study of batteries

-yes, across most scales in the battery development chain

Raised awareness

-helped give info on BMS, recycling, legislation which was interesting and useful although not directly applicable to my research project

Highlighted careers in the battery technology field

Inspired you

-could have done a better job and explaining different roles and careers in the battery supply chain, obviously not relevant to PhD students just yet but it could be interesting to outline roles from technicians through to CTO in typical battery related organisations.

Networked you in with other colleagues and experts in the field

-Theres a lot more potential here to add value to this program, in the case for Faraday PhDs if there was an opportunity for people to present info on their own research projects, key challenges or what they wanted to get out of the battery school experience it would help with teachers tailoring material or just pushing conversation between delegates and help drive more useful discussion from the get go.

Increased understanding of the Commercial Battery Business

-give info on the typical R&D life cycle of a company or the project management and planning point of view in addition to individual techniques

Equipped you for your own research project

-helped cement some more knowledge and added diverse understandings as wel

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Very useful discussion that mentioned multiple topics - not too deeply so if they are not from your discipline you can still follow. On the other hand once you are from the certain field that he presentation is about, then it’s too basic. But it’s a good compromise. Lab sessions are very good, love the hands on experience. However, everything is quite tightly packed and makes it all quite heavy - the day is tiring. Perhaps the lab sessions should be a bit shorter? 1,5-2h max. 3h lectures in the morning - perfect. Perhaps dinner should be a bit later to give us more free time in between? The reason being it’s impossible to go to the gym/swim in the 1-1,5h break time and workout after the dinner is hard from other reasons. Good speakers chosen and very nice venue and food.

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Please add your reflections and evaluation of the WMG Battery School here.  Just click the + button in the bottom right hand corner and begin to type...

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Please add your reflections and evaluation of the WMG Battery School here.  Just click the + button in the bottom right hand corner and begin to type...