Lab Innovations, the UK’s largest annual trade exhibition for the laboratory industry, took place on 3rd – 4th November 2021 at the NEC in Birmingham.
The show’s inaugural Lab Awards celebrated the key achievements in the industry, with 16 awards across four main categories of collaboration, innovation, sustainability, and people.
Founded in 2005, Anthias Consulting is expert in the analytical sciences, providing technical training to laboratory analysts at all experience levels across industry and academia. Its range of courses teach the knowledge and skills to develop, optimise and validate methods, operate instrument hardware and software, carry out maintenance and troubleshooting and interpret results.
Anthias Consulting was awarded ‘Most impactful online or print training resource’ in recognition of its Virtual Classroom training courses. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Anthias ran scheduled training courses throughout the year and regularly welcomed delegates from around the world onto courses at its training facility at The Open University in Milton Keynes in the UK. In response to the pandemic, Anthias quickly adapted to online delivery of scheduled training courses and launched its first Virtual Classroom course in April 2020.
The Anthias team strived to replicate as closely as possible on their Virtual Classroom courses the essence and style of their face-to-face courses. Delivered live, delegates can ask questions at any time by raising their hand and using their microphone, or typing it in and have their question answered in real time, helping to reinforce understanding while progressing through the course. The instructor demonstrates instrument parts and consumables, uses a whiteboard for explanations and there are questions and tasks to work through to enable delegates to think through and use what they are learning. During software training courses, instructors share their screen and work through the detailed practical exercises, delegates can work through the exercises at the same time if the software is available, or download the data files and work through them once back in the lab.
The majority of Anthias’ courses are approved by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for the purposes of Continuing Professional Development. Assessment involves peer review to set criteria by experts in their field. The approval underlines the high quality of the training material and commitment to the ongoing improvement of the course through delegate feedback.
The continuous availability of Anthias’ RSC-approved training courses throughout the pandemic has enabled analysts, researchers and technicians to improve their knowledge, learn new skills and continue their professional development, even when working from home. Analysts have attended the training to meet a variety of goals, from learning new techniques to multi-task due to restricted staff numbers working in their labs during the pandemic, to funding their own training for their personal development and to improve their CVs.
Anthias trainers have delivered over 440 hours of live scheduled training to delegates around the world, including from as a far as New Zealand. Feedback from delegates has been excellent, with attendees particularly enjoying the interactivity of the training; the single view of the instructor, presentation and chat box; and seeing the physical instrument components or software being demonstrated.
Anthias Consulting won the award for ‘Most impactful face-to-face training’. In addition to scheduled training courses, Anthias delivers tailored and bespoke training programmes onsite worldwide. Clients range from small, independent laboratories through to academic institutions and multi-national corporations. For customers in the UK, throughout the pandemic Anthias has continued to safely deliver onsite training, supporting laboratory staff with hands-on training on instrument hardware and software, method development and optimisation, method validation and troubleshooting.
Anthias trainers have supported their UK customers facilitating reduced downtime in the laboratory and enabled continuation of analysis and R&D. Onsite support has ranged from training users on how to operate new instrumentation and software, training to provide cover on other techniques/instruments along with how to troubleshooting instrument and application problems. Frequently, blended learning has been used to reduce face-to-face contact, with presentations delivered virtually which are then immediately followed by the face-to-face hands-on training onsite.
Anthias’ Director and Senior Consultant Diane Turner said: “We’re delighted to win these two awards. We’re very proud that our training has enabled analysts to continue learning and improving their knowledge, particularly during periods of lockdown when delegates could attend from home. I would like to thank all our customers around the world for their support and to congratulate all our team for their efforts. It’s wonderful to be able to celebrate the achievements that have resulted from the challenges we’ve all experienced over the past 20 months. I would also like to thank the Lab Awards for recognising our efforts and the impact of our services.”
Image: Anthias Consulting's Director & Senior Consultant Diane Turner and Marketing Manager Alana Thompson receive their award from awards host Andy Evans of Greenlight Laboratories.