Hello, and welcome to the Physics World Stories
podcast. I'm Andre Glesser. And in this episode,
we're exploring
QWIP plus, the conference for undergraduate women in
physics.
Picture a university lecture hall. It's 9AM. It's
packed, and you're looking at a sea of
future physicists.
If you look closely at the demographics of
that room, the statistics tell
a disappointing
story. While girls perform just as well as
boys at GCSE physics, the numbers drop at
a level. And by the time we reach
the graduate level in The UK, women make
up only around 20 to 25
of the cohort.
This is a persistent gap but once a
year there's an event that completely flips that
dynamic
and it is QWIP plus.
It's an initiative designed to stop that leaky
pipeline, combat isolation,
and show students that they belong in this
field.
Following the success of the twenty twenty five
conference, I wanted to find out exactly what
happens at these events and why they're so
vital for the retention instead.
Step. So I caught up with doctor June
Macombie from the University of Nottingham, a key
figure in The UK organization of the events,
and we're also joined by two brilliant undergraduate
physicists who are right in the middle of
the action.
We'll look ahead to the conference in Birmingham,
UK in 2026,
but we'll also look back at the successes
of this year's Qwik plus.
I'm June Macombie.
I'm an honorary fellow at the University of
Nottingham.
And the reason I'm talking to you is
that I chair
the national organizing
committee and the national steering group
of QWIP
plus, which is the conference for undergraduate women
in physics
plus non binary.
And the plus bit, indicates non binary. We
didn't want to change the whole name,
when we when we thought about it deeply.
And my background in physics, I I actually
worked a long time in chemistry department, but
I've worked as a laser spectroscopist
and then as an astrophysical chemist.
Hi, everyone. My name is Tantra Pree Kaur.
I'm a final year natural sciences student at
the University of Birmingham. I study physics and
biology.
I'm interested in interdisciplinary
science,
and collaboration.
And I was very lucky to attend
QIP plus at Warwick just this year, and
I'm very happy to be in the committee,
here at Birmingham for keyword plus twenty twenty
six.
And the way that I've contributed
to the upcoming conference is that I
contributed ideas
to the kind of speakers that we can
have,
topics that can be included in the conference,
suggesting ideas for sponsors.
It's been really fun,
to organize,
a conference with academics and other students.
And I'm really looking forward to meeting a
lot more
people during cuba plus. So I'll see you
there.
My name is Harrick McCormick.
I am a second year physics student at
the University of Birmingham.
I primarily am interested in nuclear physics and
nuclear decommissioning.
My role
in QWIP is basically the same as Tun's
Pre, so I'm not gonna go, like, pop
out over it. But, yeah, I went to
the Warwick Conference earlier this year, and I'm
on the committee for the next Birmingham Conference.
So I'm just working towards that right now.
So I think this is probably the first
question is probably going to be for June,
which is, you know, how did Cuwit Plus
start, and why did it start? Well, it
started
in 2006
in California.
That was the first grassroots
conference with that name.
It continued in The States as a sort
of more or less a grassroots organization
until 2012
when the,
American Physical Society
took over an institutional role. Now I should
say that Cuba within The States,
slightly different model from Cuba within The UK
because
it's a big country,
and there were a lot of students. And
so it was run more or less on
a state,
basis. So California had an event.
I'm gonna say Massachusetts
had an event, etcetera.
So and it is still running in states.
But in, 2013,
Daniela Bortolotti, who was involved in,
QWIP in The US,
moved to Oxford where she's head of the
particle physics group,
And she decided that it was such a
good thing. She'd she'd seen its effect on
students and on departments
in,
in America. So when she moved from America
to The UK, she decided
to start running QWIP
in The UK.
And for,
five years, she ran it at Oxford,
and had an amazing group of women at
Oxford who sort of promoted it and did
organize it
and evaluated it, always important, evaluated its impact.
And for five years, she that group she
and that group of women really got a
good momentum going for it. But, but one
of the things about QIP,
QIP plus is it now is is that
it not only affects the students who attend,
it affects the,
the department that hosts it. So the decision
was made
in conjunction with funders
that it should start traveling around the country.
And so for the last six years, it
has traveled around the country. Marina Petri at
York was the first brave person to take
this on outside of
Oxford. And it's been at York, Southampton, Glasgow,
Liverpool, Limerick, and Warwick. And now it's in
Birmingham next year, and the year after that
in 2027,
it will be in Edinburgh. And it's evolved
because it,
as you can tell from it being QWIP
plus now, it's not only,
well, it's women and non binary participants.
So that's why because
we still have this stubborn 20%
number
in physics
departments,
among the undergraduate population.
And, literally,
in my
in my sort of professional life,
millions millions of pounds have been put into
shifting that 20% participation
of women. And forgive me, I'll I'll refer
to women,
women
participating
in undergraduate physics degrees.
And,
it's not moved.
So there are other reasons for that not
to do with the delivery
at the university level, but,
but that number is still there. And it
means that
it's it's it's so important
for,
undergraduate women in physics to be able to
network and to be mentored and to see
possible career paths
and to be able to network with each
other. You know? But small departments, that will
be a small number of women
that you will meet doing your subject, passionate
about your subject. But what's wrong with the
way that we are,
talking about physics that's not attracting women to
it? I feel that physics is
the way it the way it's presented in
schools,
like, it presents as a masculine subject, especially
opposed to, say, biology and chemistry.
I mean, that's the really big thing is
that if you are a girl who is
interested in science, you know, I think we've
come a lot of way since, you know,
the sixties where, you know, my nan wasn't
taught science at school.
So the fact that now women are allowed
to, like, do science subjects and, obviously, requires
to do science subjects. But now if a
girl sort of expresses interest in science, they're
sort of pushed into
the
biology chemistry side of it. I think with
physics
because I I don't wanna say it as,
like, an annoying physicist, but physics is obviously
the that's the hardest one. You know what
I mean? I don't wanna be like, my
girlfriend's literally a chemistry student, but, like,
but, you know, it's traditionally seen as, like,
the the most the most intelligent one. You
know?
So when a, like, when a, like, a
young girl sort of expresses interest in more
analytical scientific stuff,
they're sort of pushed into these sort of
again, there's nothing wrong with biology and chemistry,
but they're sort of shoehorned into those sort
of places.
And if you look at sort of like
the first of accounts of people,
say, I think if you're interested and talk
to students who came from all girls' schools,
like, specifically all school girls' grammars,
is that they
those like, they have loads of people going
into physics in those pea in those sort
of, like,
in those schools. Like, most of the girls
you'll speak to in the undergraduate physics courses
will have gone to all girls schools
because I you feel very
ostracized
in sort of I think the the three
biggest ones that girls feel ostracizing at school
are maths, physics, and computer science.
Yeah. I mean, it's seen as an unfeminine
thing to do,
and it basically puts a target on your
back in a very, like, already horrible place,
you know, being in secondary school where you
just wanna keep your head down. Having doing
these things put targets on your back
and whatnot, like, I
in my, like, in my physics GCSE because
I didn't actually do physics at a level.
I have a I have a weird way
that I got into physics,
but I didn't do physics a level. But
in my physics GCSE,
my physics teacher I was one of the,
say, the privileged people to have a specialist
physics,
like, somebody who did a physics degree be
a teacher.
But he used to talk about again, I
won't go into the details of it because
it wasn't appropriate for children, but he used
to go into very details about his sex
issues on women,
how much he hated women. He sort of
exploits with women to a bunch of 15
year old students,
and it just sort of puts this far,
this far of this physics being a very
much a boys' club. That's extraordinary.
I'm very, very sorry to hear that. That's
I just I just can't quite believe that.
I I don't wanna go too much into
it. So but there was something you said
there, which I do want to go into,
which is you had a weird way into
physics. Go on. Tell us what's your weird
way into physics. Yeah.
I I don't know. When I was 16,
I was trying to be rebellious because my
mom's a math teacher.
So I guess I was trying I I
was into science. So I was like, what
if we just do all humanities for a
levels and be, like, different or whatever?
Then I started doing all my humanities subjects,
then I was like, get me out of
here. You know what I mean? I was
like, k. Get me out of here. When
I was a kid, I wanted to be
a marine biologist. I was really into
biology.
You know, I was coming to the end
of my a levels, and I was like,
I do not wanna do a humanities degree.
Get me like, don't make me do this.
And then I found out about foundation years.
So the University of Birmingham offers a foundation
year for people who haven't studied maths or
physics at a level to go into,
computer science, engineering, or physics. And a lot
of other universities like Nottingham also offers it,
like a similar sort of course.
I just wanted to go into physics
for for some very odd reasons. One, just
because I was good at maths, you know,
having a mom with a maths teacher.
But, also,
I'm really into science fiction,
so I was just
I I was just like, oh, it's a
doctor who degree. Let's do this. Very serious,
very, like you know?
But, you know, I I came into it,
and I just, like, I came into it
for a problem that, like, you know, science
fiction, I'm good at math sort of side
of it, and then really found
my sort of love in nuclear energy.
And I've to effect, coming into sort of
thoughts about women in physics, I feel that
women, when they go into degrees, they're sort
of expected to have their sort of life
plan a lot more fixed in their mind.
They're not allowed to sort of have, say,
what I went through just be like, I
like science fiction. I like math. Let's do
physics. They're sort of expected to be like,
let's go to medicine, and I'm gonna be
a doctor. I'm gonna be a GP. I'm
gonna get money, and I'm gonna support my
family. But they're not really allowed to have
a freedom. I think a lot of, like,
young boys going into degrees are of just
being able to be like, I like this
subject. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. I mean,
I think that also puts away people going
to physics because we don't really have much
as a general thing from boys and girls,
we don't really have much of a knowledge
of what do you actually do with a
physics degree in most people. And I acknowledge
what you do with an engineering degree, but
people don't, like, know what you do with
a physics degree, really.
Transparent?
Yeah. I really agree with everything that Harriet
has talked about.
Like Harriet said, physics isn't really seen as
a naturally feminine or girly
subject for people to follow. And I think
it's quite tricky as well because
physics and math are probably
two of the subjects that are not taught
very well at school.
So I think it's a bit difficult if
someone
does have the potential to do well in
physics or math or whatever, but they don't
really have the support that goes with,
doing well,
in those subjects and
getting ahead.
And I think I just wanna say that
I think what I've found is having a
supportive network can be really helpful
in helping you to
follow your interest because I went to a
co ed school myself,
and
very few people were interested in the sciences.
My friends certainly weren't, but they were quite
supportive in, like,
what I wanna do at a level, what
I wanna do a degree, and that sort
of thing. So
I I think that I like physics. I
like biology, so that's obviously what I'm gonna
do.
And I think it's important to have supportive
teachers as well, which is unfortunately not something
everyone gets.
But I guess that's the sort of supportive
network that Kiwi plus
is trying to give to people who have
managed to at least study physics,
at degree level because it just shows you
that
the experiences that we have
are quite similar
often. And it's really important to support
people in, like, following what they're
interested in. Jean?
The research
that's been done into this shows that underrepresented
groups are are put off by outdated stereotypes
that occur within
in the physics community.
And, also,
there's a gap of three and a half
thousand
specialist physics teachers. Right? That's the gap in
not physics teachers. And it's very hard for
somebody who's not a specialist in that's in
a subject
to
go into a classroom
and really enthuse the class.
Lots of them make huge efforts and undertake
CPD,
continuing professional development
even though their original
degrees might have been in biology
or psychology, but they
they will not start with that immediate passion,
which is really important to get across.
And,
you know, women and other and other underrepresented
groups are really,
put off by the outdated stereotype that
appears. So yeah. Just to say but you
two illustrated
that beautifully, actually.
Absolutely. I mean, you've you've touched on the
fact that, you know, this isn't the only
underrepresented
group, and there are other groups. So people
of color, working class people,
mature students,
migrants,
for example. Is
is that something that's covered in the conference,
or is it specifically looking at women and
and non binary
people? In terms of
recruiting
undergraduates to the conference, we usually have far
more applicants than can
actually be accommodated
and literally accommodated if we're talking about accommodation,
but also in terms of the finances,
etcetera.
And so some years ago,
efforts has been made to make sure that
the,
invite list, if you like, covers a diversity
of backgrounds.
And,
what what what,
there was a high point for me in
Warwick when I realized that,
four of the women came from the Open
University
and literally had never met
before because there's no longer any kind of
practical component to the OU physics degree.
And they were at the other end, they
were not very young. I hope they won't
mind me saying that, but they, you know,
I I could identify with them, and they
had a fantastic time. And they've gone back
and set up a group within the OU
to
network and support each other.
But there are other obviously, you know, it's
the it's a it's a lot of work
for the organizers each year to do this,
but they do try to
arrange it.
Look at the background statements of all the
applicants.
So without wanting them to write novels or
in asking them to write an awful lot,
we do try and get some,
information beforehand.
And Harriet and Tansbury will probably be involved
in this in January
in that selection process if you don't have
exams. Okay? Yeah. You do. Harriet. Yeah. I
think what June said about the open university
students is something that I found really impactful.
You know, because again these were a lot
of people coming back to education
or who who were working, who had families
who couldn't go to uni
and are currently working across their degree. And
I found it, like, really interesting to speak
to these people
because, again, like, they like, I feel that
I have, like, a before the fall of
conference, I felt like I didn't really have
much connections to the physics community, but, obviously,
this is so much more it's so much
more for them. You know what I mean?
And I'm not gonna be, like, having a
go at other sort of, like, conferences for
this sort of stuff, but I feel like
a lot of other sort of, like, female
empowerment stuff is very, like,
just
hollow,
you know,
that you sort of take take that I've
taken part like, that I've participated in before,
like, say, secondary school
or whatnot
all these things you say. And it's really
doesn't like it's very on the service level,
just to be, like, to tick a box.
Go. We've done this.
All the problems are solved.
Yeah.
But it felt really like there's been a
lot of consideration
put in. You know what I mean? Speaking
to a lot of people from a lot
of different backgrounds. You know what I mean?
I feel one of the ones that I
found really nice was the obvious, like now
the name is, like, the conference for women
and non binary students, undergraduates,
business or whatnot. I was scared when I
applied that I was just gonna sort of
be in name only, and it wasn't gonna
actually be something that was deeply, like,
put into the conference, but it was. You
know what I mean? The first speaker we
had was a,
a trans woman,
and
I found it really nice as well that
it wasn't there just to go, look. We've
got this. No. The woman spoke about her
research in, like, in astrophysics.
You know, it was a sort of normalization
of
different communities, you know, with mature students, with
people of color, with, like, trans women and
non binary people, of allowing them just to
have a sort of space in physics, which
is sort of
regardless
of their backgrounds. Because I feel like being
a a woman in a lot of physics
community that's really put us, like, you're the
woman
purse well, you don't be whatever they're the
group projects. It's like, this now we've got
the woman speaking.
You know what I mean? Like, it it
really didn't feel like that. We had the
inclusion, but without sort of the,
the patting ourselves on the back. Like, look,
guys.
We've got we've got we've got somebody who
isn't like
an old white man on screen. Guys, well
done. Like, it just it felt naturally inclusive.
Again, I agree with what Harriet has just
said. It just felt natural that
this is what physicists
can look like.
It's not just people from a certain demographic.
And I remember when I was writing the
application, I think, one of the things I
wrote was that we kind of only just
learned physics
that people from a certain demographic
have come up with.
And it's quite easy to forget that someone
who looks like you and has your background
can also make an impact
in this field. So it was really, really
nice to
see how genuine
and
confident,
and amazing all of the speakers were.
And, again, the people at Warwick did a
great job of organizing,
the conference.
Conference, and it was really nice to meet
all the other students as well. I think
we have a really
strong network now.
I think when you do, like, a is
this not is this not just about physics
or about you? I think that whenever you
sort of having a conversation about, say, specifically,
I guess, feminism on this term, you know,
in the inclusion of women, you have to
realize that a woman's existence isn't purely the
fact that she's a woman. You know what
I mean? So many other things are put
into it, you know, the,
their race, their sexuality, their class. You know
what I mean? And when you wanna have
a conference or anything that includes women, you
have to realize the barriers that are putting
down other women and not having sort of
idea of a woman like, a woman physicist
in your head that we want to include
these ones and not include the others.
You know what I mean? I have to
sort of you have to be aware of
the barriers that you may put down barriers
in terms of,
in terms of gender.
But if you don't put the barriers and
down in terms of other
aspects, then you're only including a subset of
women. You're not including
the whole lot. Humans are a lot more
complicated than their one
sort of one trait. And I think QWIP
is it's really, really understand. There's obviously, there's,
like, things that you can do better because,
obviously, some people will always
slip through the cracks. But I feel like
through the history of QWIP
consistently, you know, like, by adding, like, the
thing with non binary people, It's consistently
been trying to work to improve getting more
and more, like, represent
representative
of women in general, you know what I
mean? Not just a subsection of women.
And we were talking
specifically here about The UK context. But, you
know, for example, in America,
the the,
the trans community, the the non binary community,
and to a certain extent, definitely, in The
UK are
the brunt of a quite a lot of,
political conversations, we're saying. And it's not it's
not often that it's a positive,
slant that's given to them.
Is that something that's talked about in in
the among the community at the conference? I
can comment a little bit on,
not particularly the past year, but on previous
years,
is that we have
had some sessions where it's been
specifically talked about how you can bring
how what you would hope to bring more
facets of your identity
to the identity you have within your work
or study place.
So that has been, since the meeting in
York. The yearly conferences have had sessions that
where that is discussed.
I mean, I wouldn't
automatically
know about the students discussing it amongst themselves,
because I don't try any of it to
that extent. To a certain extent, yes, neatly.
But there is a an element of each,
conference
develops its own identity because the organizers
are different and have different ideas about how
it should go. And,
but it is,
it is something that some of the organizers
have formally included in the program in the
past.
So Harriet. I really appreciate
in terms of of
of this conference, you know, not parties to
participate in sort of the current culture war
of just bashing trans people with a stick
because it's a current new thing to have
a go at.
Yeah. I mean, it was really
it it felt refreshing. It's all it was
said earlier that it was just sort of
a nonissue.
Like, it was like
it this space was I would talk talk
about the the difficulties
women face in physics, but it was also
just a celebration
of physics and allowing women just have a
space just to like physics without having to
face, you know, the the natural sort of
barriers that people put in front of us,
you know, at me. And it allowed people
like trans of men like trans women and
non binary people and other women to just
speak
naturally about our love of physics.
This isn't again, this is not just a
purely physics problem, but I feel because physics
is seen as, like, the proper archetypal as
your masculine subject or whatever.
There's been a big problem with sort of,
being like it's a bad thing to
include
your own personal experiences within
your,
within your physics research, within, like, your physics
career,
which I think
is stupid because, say, for me, what I'm
mainly interested in is is, like, radiological protection,
is nuclear waste management.
And, you know, the reason why I got
into this is because I grew up in
an area like, my house was built on
a toxic waste site. I grew up in
an area which I was surrounded by waste
all the time, you know I mean because
I lived in a lower class area
where we were just seen as a dumping
site for anybody,
you know I mean and this passion that
I have towards radiological safety is both because
of my passion for nuclear physics because I
just let you know it's cool, you know,
I love all that. So but I also
have my passion for protecting
communities like mine.
So, you know, all these things
interlocked with one another. And I think people
think of, like, say, physics and personality biology
as a more, like,
less human science. Like, it's less to do
with humans, but I would argue it's it's
a lot more to do with humans. Like,
all your electricity
or, like, nuclear waves or every everything that
is that is we control that for better
or for worse.
You know what I mean? And people's identities,
even, like, you know,
as like a straight white man, their identity
is still affecting their physics world just but
but just their physics work. But just because
they're seen as the normal basic
expected one, nobody considers that that affects their
work as well. You know what I mean?
And it's effective for better or for worse.
Yes. And I think just when we bring
our personality or the kind of things that
we're
interested in outside of physics, but you still
link to it and the kind of research
that we're doing,
People just think that it's, like,
too soft or, like, too easy
to mention. Like, they just
think that proper, hardcore
physics research is lots of numbers, coding, experiments,
that sort of thing. So people I think
a lot of people just don't like it
if you try to combine some different techniques
or concepts or even just
talk about why you're interested in whatever it
is that you're doing or, you know, bring
the
human side,
physics. But like Carrie, it was saying that
actually makes things more relevant, and
it helps people to connect
with their work.
Brilliant. Yeah. Let's go to the conference specifically
in in 2025.
What what were your favorite
moments from it? What's come out of it
for you? It was,
the conference dinner, and it was not because
of the food. It was watching
student after student after student queuing up, not
just to get Jocelyn Bell Burnell to sign
their
menu or their card,
but to tell her what they were doing
and what they were interested in and what
they're passionate about. And Jocelyn's an absolute star,
and I think she responded.
She listened, and she responded to everybody that
she could. And that, for me, was a
fantastic
highlight. Amazing. Can I come next time? I
didn't realize.
Harriet. I I have a I my my
favorite memory is I saw a Jocelyn Belbin
Al story. Not to be I'll see only
things going on at this conference.
But,
like, I'm not an astrophysicist,
but, you know, everybody knows Bel everybody knows
Belbin Al. Like, everybody's like she's basically gone,
like, regardless of gender. You know? She's she's
discovered the neutron star, you know, call us.
But we were walking back from a lab
tour,
and we were behind the other group because
somebody had to stay back to go to
toilet.
And we see this little old woman,
and she's like, do you know the way
to queue whip? In this, like, nice nice
little north Northern Irish voice. And I was
like, wait.
Is that Belle Burnell? But you don't wanna
say any sort of Northern Irish old woman
who's going to a physics conference is Belbinel.
You know what I mean? This whole thing
is supposed to be about being like, oh
my god. There's so many different women in
physics.
So we're like, yeah. Yeah. We can we
can direct you there.
Walk her along and try to slightly sort
of ask her being like, oh, what do
you do? Like, what university are you at?
What what are you doing? And she's like,
oh, I'm I'm at Oxford.
You know?
I'm interested in astrophysics. I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
And then I could the the Warwick is
lovely. Warwick, a lovely uni, but it's very
confusing,
to get around.
So we directed out the dodgy corridors.
And then I say to to z, Jocelyn
Belber now,
I'm not going to mug you.
She seemed to appreciate it. But then when
we got towards the actual conference, I thought
I've just gotta bite the bullet and ask
her, are you Jocelyn in Belbinow?
And she's like, yeah.
And I was like,
okay.
Why don't we do that? And then she
phantoms us for help and go back to
go to the thing. And I think that's
real and then, like, later in one of
the other talks, she just sat next to
me, and I was like, oh, so Jesus
has sat next to me. Okay.
Sound.
And I think, like, obviously, that is just
like a funny story, but I think it
really
shows the fact that
it's it's was a really weird thinker. I
feel like especially when you're younger, you really
tell this sort of, like, hierarchy of being
like, this is a person who's really, really
smart that we all have to, like,
like, praise and go nowhere near.
But it was it felt really like
the conference really made me feel like a
physicist for the first time. You know what
I mean? Just talking with these people you're
reading, like literally reading books being like this
is like the smartest person ever and just
like having a chat with her.
And that's the case with a lot of
other like these really like
these like amazing like, people like doing the
talks and whatnot. And even ones they weren't
doing the talks, they were just there because
they just enjoyed the conference, but were, like,
oh, so these really, like, high level physicists.
You were talking to you, like like, equal.
Obviously, no. But I'm I'm a second year
physics student. I'm not like I'm not I'm
not proper clued up. But talking to you,
like, you have the potential to be very
equal, like, in terms of, like, the physics
sort of standpoint without this sort of this
sort of force hierarchy she's seeing sort of
of a space. It it felt really welcoming.
So, yeah, that's the story about how
I sort of threatened Belbin out.
Amazing.
Touch free. Yeah. I also met,
Jocelyn.
She's absolutely amazing. I I'm quite impressed by
Harriet's story.
Mine was a bit more simpler.
So I've
I I was really awestruck
sorry, starstruck
when I met Jocelyn, and I was just
I just didn't know what to say. I
was like, hi, professor.
And I think I I wish I'd spoken
to her more because I was quite nervous
about
just speaking to her and, like,
seeing her in person.
Just like Harriet was saying, she's a really
amazing and humble person,
and it's amazing that she comes to Kiwi
plus,
every
year. She was saying that she just really
enjoys it,
and she loves talking to everyone there. So
if you do get to speak to her,
at the conference in Birmingham, then please don't
be shy.
Just talk to her.
Ask her about her interests and
what she's doing, and tell her about yourself
as well. Yeah. But not everybody. Right? Because
you need to speak to her, in in
more depth this time because you were a
bit stuck. Yes. Yes. I do.
Well, yeah. I won't remind her to embarrass
myself next time when I met. She won't
know. It's fine. She won't know. It's fine.
I'll I'll say I'll I'll think I'll I'll
try to give a non Jocelyn Bell Burnell
story because that's not it's not just a
Jostling Balbanelle
meet up convention.
Yeah. That would be a good thing, though.
We should do that. But yeah. Yeah. Like,
I'll be up for that. That's what we're
all going for next year.
She doesn't know it yet, but she'll do
it.
But in terms of, like, there's, like, general
memories, like, when we go to the conference
dinner, you know,
we were,
it was right next to Coventry Cathedral.
And
we if anybody knows you know, it's currently
December when we're recording this. If anybody knows
the amazing Christmas film nativity,
which was filmed at Coventry Cathedral,
me and a couple of the other students
tried to recreate scenes from the, the Christmas
film Nativity at Coventry Cathedral.
And I felt this is this is I
I I traditionally have I I'm autistic.
I have a hard time communicating with others
and hard time making friends,
But it just came so naturally at this
conference, you know, I made I just naturally
made
a load of mates. I didn't feel ostracized.
I was sort of sitting in a corner,
like,
you know,
you know, everybody was lovely. I got on
with everybody. You know? It was, like, it
was great to see tons of, like, you
know, to talk about the problems with space
and physics and also just physics itself, but
also just really great just to, like,
speak to other people in your situation and
have have a laugh. You know?
Yeah. So it's not like a really, like,
serious, like,
serious high level, like, physics conference. Like, it's
it's just like a great community sort of
event with, you know, feminism and physics as
a sort of, like, call side bit.
At least I found it like that. Okay.
So aside from checking which films have been
on location in those cities,
what what would your recommendation be for people
who are thinking about going to Cuot plus
in those places next year and beyond? I
think I would say just look forward to
it, because it's a really great,
event.
So, Harry Oates saying how
nice and easy it is to talk to
all the other attendees,
and I I agree with that.
So, like, don't feel that you're,
not gonna enjoy it or it's gonna be
this, like, really stressful event.
Just make sure you pack everything you need,
I think,
and just,
enjoy it. I I basically just agree with,
like, Hashpreet. So I think the biggest thing
is just, like, speak to people. You know?
It's an event to speak to people, other
students, and also academics.
Yeah. You know?
Just talk people's head off until they tell
you to stop. Yep.
That's sort of my advice.
And also as as a brewing myself,
if you're coming to next year's conference, you
know, explore Birmingham, best city in the world.
Don't give me those dodgy looks.
I am. Yeah. I'll do it. I will.
But yeah. It's Bristol, obviously. But yeah.
But Birmingham, yeah, best thing in the world.
So have a look around.
Enjoy yourself.
Yeah. Amazing.
I'd just to say Birmingham is a wonderful
place. It's a great place to Yes. Tanchprit.
Yes, sir. I I just wanted to say
we keep telling everyone that they should just
keep talking,
when they come to the event, which is
a really good to give.
But people do have different personalities.
They don't feel that you're,
going to have to be really extroverted,
in the three or four days that you're
gonna be here.
Like, just take your time and just make
sure that you talk to people
when you feel like it. And there are
quiet rooms as well,
during the conference where you can just go
there for a little bit if you just
need some peace and quiet.
And it's not, you know, a race to
speak to the most, amount of people, to
ask the best and most interesting questions during
the q and a's. It's nothing like that.
Please just feel
comfortable
talking to people and Amazing. Amazing. That's brilliant.
Thank you for saying that. I do I
speaking as an introvert myself,
it it's not often that people bring that
up and yeah. Amazing. Thank you very much.
Harriet.
I I'd like to speak to people because
I'm a nurse.
But,
that's been annoying for people that aren't from
East Coast. Apparently, that sort of thing in
Birmingham.
But,
yeah, I feel like,
obviously, like, a social I feel like the
social aspect of it is that even if
you're, like, not very talkative, like, I find
a lot of people who are there who
were weren't very talkative, but they were still
very involved in
in groups or whatnot. Like, even if you're,
like, don't wanna talk a lot, don't feel
like that's, like, won't allow you to make
makes or, like, be in groups or discussions.
Like,
you can you can just chill there and,
like, listen to other people if that's what
you want and whatnot. Well, I just wanted
to say quickly that, what Town Street said,
there are quiet rooms. There were at Warwick.
There will be at Birmingham.
And we found that as an important thing
to add into the mix so that if
you do just want to, you know, have
the half hour dipping out or hour dipping
out, there is a quiet there there are
quiet rooms. So,
whilst we hope everybody will
network
fantastically well, we all know that there's times
when we just need to kind of withdraw
and and
and,
enjoy our own space for a bit. Yeah.
Amazing. I just if there are any introverts
listening, I can also recommend making podcasts because
you have a very structured conversation. It has
a very limited amount of time while you're
having the conversation. Mhmm. And then you get
to spend time on your own in the
room editing it. It's a perfect job for
an introvert.
There's how's it funded? Is it is it
something that will go on forever? Is there
no there are no barriers to this stopping?
Or how's it going? Funding's tough.
I'll say that.
So Harriet and Tanjibit will know a little
bit about this from the local organizing committee
meetings. So
we have a number of funders,
but the host university
normally has to find about 50% of the
cost.
The exterior,
supporters
are Institute of Physics, Ogden Trust,
EPPSR, STFC,
and now most recently, the Royal Society.
And the important thing for the organizers,
because
it genuinely
takes,
like, a two year run up to running
this conference, is for me slash
the, the National Steering Group to know that
we have a funding stream for the next
two, three, four. I mean, my my dream
is to have five years
funding stream.
My dream is actually for QIP to become
completely
unnecessary
to run
because the
situation
within
departments,
there'll be no more,
you know, the percentage of students taking a
level, women taking a level will increase, and
therefore, the numbers going into university will increase
because there isn't really much of a leaky
pipeline between a level and university.
The leaky pipeline is between GCSE and a
a level.
But, yeah, my ultimate dream is that I
won't have to fundraise for it anymore because
it will be completely unnecessary
because we'll be living in this
new environment
with,
where there's no such thing as implicit bias
or
structured gender discrimination.
You know, that's my idea.
But that's not where we're at.
So at the moment,
we will actively encourage anybody out there who's
listened to this. Please do contact me if
you have
any desire whatsoever
to,
to provide funding.
So the barriers to this continuing indefinitely
are that the landscape for higher education or
the funding landscape for higher education
and the staffing levels
are
precarious at the moment. And so we're asking,
universities
They have to put forward a proposal
saying what their roughly what their budget will
be, what their school will give them in
terms of resources
and actual finances.
So that's, you know, that is a hard
ask at the moment, a really hard ask,
but also time time of staff.
It's a lot of
effort by the staff who are involved at
host universities.
So that those are the barriers to it
continuing indefinitely.
One would be positive if there was no
need for it to happen anymore.
The others are more around the funding issues,
which
for anything that is not,
it's getting to the point where it's
so embedded that it's almost seen as a
core activity.
Whereas at the moment, it's, you know, how
much discretionary funding
does a department have in order to devote
towards it. And I won't
there's no point in me giving actual numbers
on funding it here because, obviously,
what we did see was a huge increase
in the cost over the last two years
of running it because of accommodation and catering
costs and even just railway costs. Right?
Buying tickets.
So that those are the barriers.
But I think it's
so a call will go out fairly soon
asking for people
to,
or departments to put forward proposals for 2028
and 2029.
It's a long way ahead. You know? It's
a long way ahead for them to think
about it, but I had to be certain
that I had or we that we had
funding
for those years because it's not fair to
us departments to put together proposals for something
where you're going, sorry.
No cash. You know? It's a bit tough
for you, that one.
But
what I would say to departments, if you're
thinking about putting in proposals, it's not just
the effect that QWIP has on the students
who attend. It's the ripple effect in your
physics department or school
because you've raised the profile
of how important this topic is.
And it's important in not only in terms
of your undergraduate community, but in terms of
your research,
realizing that our diversity of experience and opinions
coming into your research groups is important as
well.
So,
think think carefully think carefully about the benefits,
the long term benefits to you as schools
or departments.
And as soon as I get one more
bit of funding nailed down, that call will
go out.
I just wanna make a little comment for,
say, people who are listening like, students who
are listening to this if they wanted to
go, to there.
QWIT
is, I think, to this year, it's costing
like, you have to give a, sort of
not donation, but a sort of contribution of
£45
to attend. But this should be
covered by your,
your department,
like, if you email them and ask them
about if they can cover it or not.
But I just wanna, like, sort of put
that out as sort of, I don't think
of really, like, your financial background as being
a sort of barrier towards this because as
well, like,
your department may be also able to fund
your travel to Birmingham
and whatnot. So don't think, oh, I'm gonna
have to pay, like, £200
to go or something like that. That's not
the reality of it. You know, we maybe
get funding from outside of students to try
and make it as accessible to students as
we can. Yeah.
I just wanna say that when I got
into, QIP plus at Warwick,
I think it was really good of Warwick
that email us and say that we should
be asking our departments
to, reimburse
the registration fee and travel as well. Because,
you know, we're undergraduate students. We don't know
how conferences work. We've probably never been to
one before this.
So it's really good.
Let students know that they shouldn't be paying
for everything themselves.
Okay. Brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you very much.
I I I I really love the idea
of, like, physics conferences just in the future
having, you know, a trans woman opening it
and it being a nonissue. I think that's
that that's what I've heard from this conversation.
That'd be a really lovely future to have.
We're not in that future. We do have
Cuot plus.
I'd I'd thank you so much for talking
to me about it. Do you have any
last thoughts before we,
say goodbye to everyone? Attend Cuot plus. Give
us money for QIP plus.
No. I think how it and Tanjushree have
put all of the the arguments really, really
well.
I just wanna reiterate what June was saying
earlier about two plus being important for students
and for departments
because I think we as students feel
happier and more confident
after this conference. We feel like physicists
finally.
And I kind of think of this conference
when I'm
maybe struggling
with my physics
studies or something. And it kinda just helps
me to think
of the really positive experience that I had
there and that it's not like, I'm not
struggling because I'm not good enough or because
I don't understand what's going on.
But there's other things that I need to
look at, if that makes sense. And it
just helps me
to make sure that I keep
my interest
in physics and just STEM in general
up,
and that's not
anything to do with me as a person,
if that makes sense.
I'd like to thank Tanushpreet,
Harriet, and June for talking to me and
sharing their stories and bringing their insights to
this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast.
If listening to them has sparked an interest,
whether you're a student feeling perhaps a bit
isolated or just like you want to get
involved in this conference and go along to
it, you'll need to know about the next
one, of course. And as we've been discussing,
the baton's been passed for the twenty twenty
six cuitt plus conference to the University
of Birmingham, and it is scheduled
for the nineteenth to the 03/22/2026.
And 2026
is, of course, just around the corner as
this is the final episode of the Physics
World Stories podcast for this year. I hope
you've enjoyed all the quantum content we've been
bringing you this year. And although we have
moved slightly away from it at times, it
has been a wonderful
year to explore everything to do with quantum
mechanics. You can find out all about that
and the International Year of Quantum Science and
Technology on the Physics World website physicsworld.com
where you'll also find links to the QWIT
plus conference and how you can book your
tickets and maybe get your university involved and
ideally
provide some funding for future years of the
conference. We'll be back next year with something
else from this wonderful world of physics and
I don't know about you I'm thinking maybe
we should look into that comet. Thank you
very much for listening and I hope you
have a wonderful December wherever you are in
the world.