The biannual Industrial Liaison Forum was held on Friday February 10th in the Octagon. The focus of this semester’s event was on welcoming back Queen Mary alumni and on celebrating industrial project collaboration.

The event was a great success with over fifty visitors attending and was broken up into three parts; starting with a poster exhibition, followed by a networking lunch and completed with three separate panel sessions, chaired by SEMS academics and made up of attending alumni.

The morning session gave an opportunity for third and fourth year students to present their poster projects in the Octagon. A contest was held and awards given to the best third year project poster, the best fourth year project poster and the best MEng group project.

A networking lunch followed the poster competition giving SEMS faculty an opportunity to meet with visiting alumni and various industrial links who attended to discuss and celebrate on going collaboration with Queen Mary academics and students.

Finally in the afternoon the event was handed over to the visiting alumni to allow them the opportunity to speak to current students about what they have been doing since graduating from Queen Mary. Divided into three panels over thirty alumni participated and their stories were both interesting and inspirational!

The day was wrapped up with a final networking session in the Octagon allowing students a chance to enquire about possible opportunities available to them and to continue to make links with the attending industrial contacts.

The SEMS Industrial Liaison Forum has now been held twice a year for three years and provides an opportunity for students, academics and industrial links to interact and further Queen Mary’s strong position and reputation within the engineering and materials science industries.

The next Industrial Liaison Forum will again be held in the Octagon on November 14, 2012.