CHAI ECR Annual General Meeting 2026

Report provided by Jim Lowe and Damian Machlanski

CHAI early-career researchers (ECRs) started organising ongoing and one-off activities towards the end of 2024. We began with an ad hoc board to coordinate these activities, including regular seminars (convened by Steph Riley before changing to a rotating host model), journal club (overseen by Damian Machlanski) and research meetings (organised by Panos Dimitrakopoulos). These have evolved over time to become lively forums for discussion of cutting-edge ideas as well as work in progress.

In addition, ECRs have organised an away day at UKAIRS in September, a workshop at the University of Edinburgh in December, and produced a podcast. ECRs have also been increasingly contributing to cross-CHAI activities such as Communities of Practice (CoP) and flagships.

The first CHAI ECR Annual General Meeting (AGM), which took place on 29th January, was an excellent opportunity to reflect on this first year of ECR organising and activities, think about how we can improve the way we operate and help drive CHAI’s values and ambitions, and renew our board for the year ahead.

How we can ensure that engagement with ECR activities across all CHAI institutions is enhanced was debated, with attendees agreeing upon potential amendments to the timings of some meetings and the establishment of ‘spoke liaisons’ as immediate courses of action. Spoke liaisons will be new board positions, with one person elected as a link between the ECR board and the CHAI ECRs at their own institution, making sure that they are aware of wider ECR and CHAI developments, but also ensuring that their perspectives are reflected in board meetings.

ECRs at the AGM also sought to identify further opportunities for working with CHAI co-investigators through proactive incorporation into specific projects, and for contributing towards Communities of Practice (CoPs), which need to more clearly signal follow-up activities. The need to explore better alignment and communication channels between CoPs and flagships was also discussed, with a clear agreement to revisit the issue in subsequent ECR meetings.

On ECR organisation for the following year, it was agreed to share out the chairing and minutes officers roles by rotating them among board members, and to create a new EDI liaison post to ensure our activities are aligned with the CHAI EDI working group.

Post holders for next year will be:

·       EDI liaison: Steph Riley

·       Journal club lead: Damian Machlanski

·       Research meetings coordinator: Jim Lowe

·       Spoke liaisons:

o   King’s College London: Tom Yaacov

o   University of Edinburgh: Kurt Butler

o   University of Exeter: Jim Lowe

o   University of Manchester: Katrina Dobinda

·       Other board members: Analia Cabello Cano, Michael Camilleri, Panos Dimitrakopoulos, Zhihua Liu

If you would like to join the board at any point in the year, please just let any of us know, or just turn up to a meeting! We are still looking for spoke liaisons for Imperial College and University College London, so if you are at either of those institutions, please do get in touch.

The next meeting will be at 1pm, Thursday 26th March.

The ECRs would like to thank the admin staff (especially Belgin, who took minutes and helped organise the AGM, and Sara) and Matt Sperrin for their ongoing support for the board.