Future Leaders Workshop
Thu 11 Sept
|NEC Campus
We welcomed Early Career Researchers to attend our Future Leaders workshop in collaboration with RBOC.
Time & Location
11 Sept 2025, 10:30 – 16:30
NEC Campus, Pendigo Way, Marston Green, Birmingham B40, UK
About the event
REGISTRATION NOW CLOSED
Effective decision-making is essential for future leaders facing crises that extend beyond known capacities and preparedness. In such scenarios, where systems may be overwhelmed or behave unpredictably, leaders must make timely, informed, and ethical choices under pressure. Strong decision-making supports adaptive thinking, reduces uncertainty, and fosters trust—key components of resilience in complex, evolving crises. By strengthening this capability, the RBOC and PRITE NetworkPlus hosted a one day event to develop our future research leaders to respond not just to expected threats, but also to the unprecedented, ensuring more robust and flexible responses in the face of future shocks.
This participatory event used fictional scenarios based on real world events as time based decision making exercises. The first choices made by participant groups impacted what happened afterwards and what their next decisions needed to be.
Workshop Elements:
Effective Decision Making
Working in groups, participants were presented with a scenario where key decisions needed be made to resolve the issues at hand.
Each group was given different responsibilities within the larger context. Working together, they had to choose from the presented options. Each choice had consequences and affected the overall situation.
After an allotted amount of time, the group was asked to 'lock in' their choice and the scenario moved on, factoring their decision into the next key decision moment.
Encouraging Resilience
The workshop ran through 4-6 decision making events for all of the groups with specific time allocated for each. After this, the workshop leader evaluated the choices with all of the participants, looking at the ways in which they came to a decision, considering each group's dynamics and going through the ramifications of these choices, particularly in the way they interacted with other group's decisions.
Criteria and funding:
This was a joint event between SPRITE+ and RBOC. Due to funding rules, it was strictly open only to those currently employed at a UK higher education institution as a teacher or researcher. For those with a PhD this needed to have been completed within in the last 5 years (2020). For those without a PhD, they needed to be in the early stages of their career. This event was not open to current PhD students.
For successful applicants:
We booked standard class rail travel. For those who chose to drive, there was free parking at the venue and we covered mileage costs - this was reimbursed via expenses. Accommodation was made available on the 10th September for those with journeys of more than 3 hours. Catering was provided on the day.