The CIGRE UK NGN Young Member (YM) Showcase Competition 2025 was successfully held in on Thursday, 20 November 2025 at the IET Austin Court, Birmingham. The competition attracted strong interest from young researchers and engineers across the NGN community. Following a highly competitive review process, 7 finalists were selected from submissions spanning 8 CIGRE Study Committees. The abstracts and full papers of all candidates were rigorously reviewed by 11 reviewers from the CIGRE UK Committee and the CIGRE UK NGN Committee, ensuring a high academic and technical standard for the final showcase.
The YM Showcase Competition 2025 was organised by Jiajie Luo and Xun Jiang, with strong support from members of the CIGRE UK NGN Committee. The organising team ensured the smooth delivery of the competition and provided an engaging platform for young members to present and discuss their research. The showcase competition was judged by Charlotte Higgins, Xiaolin Ding, and Can Li, who evaluated the presentations based on technical quality, innovation, industrial impact and presentation skills.
The seven finalists—Margi Shah, Wangbiao Zhou, Haoxiang Zhao, Callum Barrett, Vlad Jarkov, Danny Guana, and Odemadighi Oye Igenewari—presented their research work covering a diverse range of topics related to power systems, insulation technologies, and advanced materials. The presentations demonstrated both strong academic depth and practical relevance to future power system development.
The winning presentations were:
- Vlad Jarkov (University of Manchester), “Green grids: bio-derived epoxies for next-generation HV insulation”.
- Haoxiang Zhao (University of Manchester), “A versatile multi-scale charge transport modelling framework for bridging material properties to insulation performance: application to moisture deterioration in cellulose–oil systems”.
- Callum Barrett (University of Manchester), “Assessment of water tree formation in XLPE insulation variants to validate design of 132 kV wet-type dynamic cables”.
CIGRE UK NGN Committee
