ECR Researchers’ Day 2026: Science meets the imaginary museum
13 May 2026, Debates Chamber, Glasgow University Union, University of Glasgow
On Wednesday 13 May 2026, we held our annual ECR Researchers’ Day at the Debates Chamber, Glasgow University Union, an event organised entirely by the Hub’s PDRAs and designed to move decisively beyond traditional conference formats. Special thanks to Fabian Ejim from Aston University for leading on the organisation.
Under the theme ‘Sharing Impact Through Creative Collaboration’, the day brought together early career researchers, co-investigators, and flexible funding project teams from across the network to share their work, build connections and collectively explore the long-term significance of their research.
The Supergen Imaginary Museum
The centrepiece of the morning was the Supergen Imaginary Museum, a creative format in which each project brought a physical object, artefact or short video to represent their research, framed around a single guiding question: What would future researchers find meaningful about our work in 50 years?
Introduced by Dr Pedro Nakasu, the museum was structured around four themed zones aligned with the Hub’s research areas: Zone 1: The Origin (foundational science and feedstock production); Zone 2: In Action (active conversion technologies); Zone 3: The Consequences (environmental, economic and societal impacts); and Zone 4: Assemble and Scale-Up (deployment and systems integration). Twelve projects from across the Hub were represented, spanning hydrogen production from biomass gasification, biowaste electrolysis, Hydrogen-BECCUS, biomass fractionation, sustainable aviation fuels, digitalisation and AI for anaerobic digestion, indirect land use change, rDME for off-grid energy, bio-based chemicals, biorefinery efficiency, feedstock scale-up, and sustainability trade-offs.
Attendees moved between zones, engaged with researchers at each exhibit, and completed feedback forms. The best exhibitions were put to a vote, with prizes awarded at the close of the day. First prize was awarded to Benaissa Dekhici, second to Akshay Bagde and third to Daniel Taylor-Holland.
Economic development and roundtable discussion
The afternoon session shifted to a collaborative economic development activity, led by Thea Mae Baltazar, focused on regional bioenergy mapping and opportunity pipeline development. Researchers worked in groups to identify priority projects and pathways for knowledge translation and regional impact. Group B were the winner of the session’s grant application exercise.
A Faraday-style roundtable discussion, chaired by Daniel Taylor-Holland, followed, exploring cross-cutting themes of incubation, diffusion and enabling environments: essentially, the ‘so what?’ and ‘for whom?’ of the Hub’s research. Groups reported back their key insights to the full cohort.
The day concluded with closing remarks and a prize ceremony delivered by Mirjam Roeder, followed by a premiere of short research videos produced by researchers across the Hub, to be uploaded to the Supergen media channel.
The 2026 Researchers’ Day demonstrated that meaningful research communication need not rely on slides or formal presentations; it can live in an object, a label and a conversation. Plans are already underway to develop the Imaginary Museum concept further for our Annual Assembly in November 2026.
