On the 18th to 19th of September 2017 Cranfield University hosted the REMS-CDT third annual conference. With speakers and attendees from industry and academia, the conference gave an opportunity for both sides to discuss their innovations and future direction. This highlights the close working practice that REMS has with industry and one of the ways in which it ensures that all work has an industry importance.

The first day was focused on student presentations where each student had the opportunity to summarize their research. The REMS centre has grown significantly since its inception three years ago and so there were 26 student presentations in the first day, starting with the third cohort and finishing with the first.

The second day hosted a mix of industry and academic presentations, too many to list in this article. While the previous year’s presentations centred around monopiles, this year saw a new focus on the potential for floating offshore structures in the first session and included speakers from Atkins, Carbon Trust and ORE Catapult. The second session discussed operational management including the use of inspection drones, data analysis from Strainstall, the influence of floating structure motion on workers and other interesting topics. The third session covered relifing and repowering, including structural integrity assessment, measurement techniques from RAL-STFC as well as flange design from LIC Energy.

The second day concluded with an expert panel Q&A session which led to an open discussion by those attending on where the industry is going and what the key areas will be to look out for in the future. This conference demonstrated the broad nature of the REMS centre and the close ties it has with industry. It will be exciting to see, as REMS continues to grow in the future and now having nearly 40 students, what the next conference will bring.