Post of the month March 2019

A review of the First E3S Student & Early Stage Researcher Group

Knowledge Exchange Webinar

Adriana Galiñanes Plaza, PhD Student at AgroParisTech University and

Institut Paul Bocuse Research Centre, France – 30th January 2019

 

One of the actions of the E3S Student & Early Stage Researcher Group (SESRG) is to enhance research networks across Europe by sharing our knowledge and experiences in an engaging way. That is why this year we organised the First E3S SESRG Knowledge Exchange Webinar.

When Martha Skinner, the former E3S SESRG Committee Chair, contacted me about this idea around May 2018, I did not hesitate! I have always thought that sharing our knowledge is the best way to improve, to make the difference! So we decided to create a team of students and early stage researcher members in France, where I am currently located.

This incredible team was composed by four members if the French Sensory Analysis Association (SFAS): Anastasia Eschevins, postdoctoral researcher at the Institut Paul Bocuse Research Centre; Jessica Dacleu, research project manager in Altran; Nicolas Seince, sensory project manager in Sanofi and myself, PhD student in consumer science and behavioural economics.

This First Knowledge Exchange Webinar, became a reality on the 30th of January. A total of 40 participants registered for this event. We counted with people from different countries: France, United Kingdom, Spain, The Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Chine, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and The United States.

The webinar lasted for one hour where we had the opportunity to present some of the work carried out in France. Three amazing speakers presented their current research and work. Alexiane Luc, graduate engineer from Agrocampus-Ouest, opened the webinar with a new approach to analyse Free Just About Right (JAR) data with consumers’ opinions. She presented a new method called “Sentiment Mapping”, (a graphical representation like the preference map) where key drivers of (dis)liking are shown. Then, Audrey Cosson, PhD student at INRA – AgroParisTech –Roquette Frère, took the floor and presented her current PhD research about “the perceptions of pea protein isolates in relation with their chemical composition” by using a new method called “Block Profiling”. The Block Profiling is a new and efficient sensory method to evaluate plant-protein isolates using relative-to-reference evaluation for separate blocks of attributes. Following this Block methodology, panellists evaluated the products in a monadic sequential way, beginning systematically with a reference product similar for each evaluation. Finally, Léonor Bonnafous, sensory and consumer scientist at Puratos, told us about her personal experience in the sensory and consumer insight world. She gave us an insight about how different experiences in research and industry can help us in the acquisition of new skills. Participants had time to discuss with the speakers after each presentation, however we would have loved to have more time for it.

Personally, I think that the organisation of this activity was very enriching because it helped me to develop some managerial as well as communicational skills. Moreover, the possibility to exchange with other colleagues and members of the E3S SESRG is always a great occasion to learn and improve the skills. We got very positive feedback from the participants as well as valuable suggestions for future webinars. For follow-up webinars we aim allowing participants to choose the topics and to have a bit more time for questions and discussions subsequent to the presentations.

To conclude I would like to thank all participants for taking part as well as the organising team members for their commitment. Thanks as well to Martha Skinner and Sara Spinelli (E3S secretary) for their suggestions and help.

CALL-TO-ACTION (CTA): We are currently looking for the next host country that would be willing to take this great opportunity to organize the next E3S SESRG webinar. If you want to get involved, please do not hesitate to contact us : E3S-SESRG@e3sensory.eu. We would be glad to help and give tips to the next organizing team.

Written by: Adriana Galiñanes Plaza

PhD student at: Dept. Food Process Engineering, AgroParisTech University & Institut Paul Bocuse Research Centre, France

Email: adriana.galinanes@institutpaulbocuse.com

Linkedin:  www.linkedin.com/in/adrianagalinanesplaza

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