Women in HPC Networking Breakfast at CIUK 2025 

We – the UK WHPC community – celebrated our fourth WHPC UK Chapters and Affiliates Breakfast on the 5th December at this year’s CIUK conference in Manchester. It was a morning spent focusing on equity, diversity, and inclusion, expertly chaired by Marion Weinzierl, welcoming more than fifty attendees.

The breakfast featured five early career tech talks from speakers who shared their personal journeys and research topics. They spoke about skills development, mentoring, recruitment, and more highlighting how their experiences could inspire others to continue pushing for change in the HPC sector. The excellent talks drew wide interest and a variety of questions for each of the speakers, with discussions continued during the coffee breaks.

The next part of the morning saw the four active WHPC chapters present on their past achievements and future plans. WHPC London, Cambridge&East Anglia, Ireland and N8 CIR took the stage, showing off their distinct communities, which all share the aim of improving diversity and inclusion in the field.

These talks were followed by a Mentimeter survey, conducted by Emily Lumley, to find out more about what people want from their local and regional chapters, from the international WHPC community,  and how we can support each other and collaborate. The results of this survey are being evaluated as we speak, to help shape the future actions of WHPC.

An interesting talk on EDI in Higher Education from Karen Stoneham, WHPC London & UCL highlighted the inequalities which still persist, and what actions should be taken to change the status quo. This then led to a group discussion session chaired by Cristin Merrit.

Following on from all that was heard and said, we spoke about what support means to the people in the room – from having supportive colleagues (growth mindset / idea encouragement), over having opportunities like fellowships and speaking opportunities, to mentorship, networking and community connections. We also touched on the importance of allies – what a difference it can make if someone just shows up and encourages you (indirect sponsorship), but also more involved allyship like reviewing papers and abstracts for events like those organised by WHPC, supporting women when they practice their talks, mentoring and sponsorship.

The discussion was cut short by lack of time – as is traditional for our WHPC breakfasts, and we wrapped up with an invitation to the Slack workspace, to help prepare WHPC’s ISC event, and to be co-organisator of a session at the Durham HPC Days 2026

We are incredibly thankful to our sponsors, who enabled this event and provided travel bursaries to our early career speakers: AWS, ASG, BeeGFS, MMM Hub, Alces Flight and the MCC.