The White Rose Industrial Physics Academy
The White Rose Industrial Physics Academy (WRIPA) is a partnership between five university physics departments of Hull, Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield and York, plus technical industries from across the region.
The School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham joined WRIPA in 2014. Originally, WRIPA was a consortium of the universities of the north lead by the University of York, hence the name "White Rose". Since joining WRIPA, Nottingham has become a full partner in running student events and expanding partnerships with industrial companies.
The role of the WRIPA academy is to facilitate collaborations between physics students and industry. We do that through student internships, "year in industry" placements, final year projects and various activities where we invite industrial representatives to campus to talk to physics students. WRIPA's coordinator at Nottingham is the Industrial Placements Officer at the School of Physics and Astronomy, Dr Olga Fernholz.
The crown jewel of the partnerships is the annual physics careers fair. It is UK’s largest physics-focused recruitment fair which brings together about 1200 undergraduate and postgraduate students and around 40 companies.
The 2024 WRIPA Physics Industry Recruitment and Placement Fair took place on 16 October 2024 at the University of York.
If you are a student, take a look at the gallery of physics students from across the consortium to see where they did their internships (or a year-in-industry placements) and where they went on to work - open Student Case Studies. To understand what career direction may be for you, try WRIPA-developed Physics Careers Discovery Tool. Check out our new physics careers podcast Potential.
Over 2019 - 2023, WRIPA was supported by the Office for Student’s (OfS) Challenge Funding whose main aim was to promote industrial experience for physics students close to home https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/news-blog-and-events/press-and-media/no-place-like-home/ This is still a very much relevant aspiration. Olga Fernholz comments: “We want to link students with the regional and local high-skilled technical jobs, thereby contributing to regional economic development and promoting student’s social mobility. This is done via work placements and industrial projects. It is up to the students and graduates to decide where they want to study and subsequently work, however, we know that personal choice can be limited and influenced by economic and political factors relating to place. And we know that students who have been exposed to different contexts tend to get better jobs, improving graduate outcomes. Our goal as a consortium is to marry the potential of the place with the potential of the physics graduates. WRIPA’s five Physics Departments will work as a perfect test site for deploying intra- and extra-curricular activites. We hope to boost industrial projects, placements, career mentoring and so on which will allow to enhance students’ skills and help the needs of the local labour market. This will also subsequently enable students to progress into high-skilled employment, be it in the region or beyond.”
For further information about the White Rose Industrial Physics Academy please go to www.wripa.ac.uk or contact the Nottingham WRIPA co-ordinator Dr Olga Fernholz at Olga.Fernholz@nottingham.ac.uk.