FEMS Junior EUROMAT 2022 held in Coimbra, Portugal
SPM hosts first in-person FEMS conference in 3 years at University of Coimbra.
When we spoke to Professor Sandra Carvalho, Chair of FEMS Junior EUROMAT 2022, in March this year we asked why should people attend to which she replied that ‘…FEMS Junior EUROMAT 2022 is the conference you should attend if you are a student, young researchers. It will give you access to a large community of international experts in the materials science field…’, and she was not wrong.
After the sad postponement of FEMS Junior EUROMAT 2020 and the virtual FEMS EUROMAT 2021, 306 delegates from 26 countries enjoyed the 3-day conference featuring 6 plenary and keynote talks from ERC grant awardees, 215 abstracts from 25 countries and 98 presentations spread over 27 sessions covering 5 areas (Functional Materials, Structural Materials, Processing Technologies, Characterisation & Modelling, Materials for Sustainability), a satellite event hosted by BIOREMIA and the FEMS Master Thesis Award final.
Plenary lectures were delivered by Professor Pedro Barquinha (Universidade Nove de Lisboa, Portugal), Professor Luis M Liz-Marzán (CIC biomaGUNE, Spain) and Professor Maria Clelia Righi (Bologna University, Italy) from flexible oxide electronics and nanoplasmonics to advancing solid interfaces.
Keynote speakers included:
- Professor Federico Bella, Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
- Professor Goreti Sales, University of Coimbra (Portugal)
- Professor Damien Voiry, University of Montpellier (France)
The event was excellently organised by PTM with record-breaking attendance for a FEMS event, and presentations cutting edge materials science and technology.
Asst Professor Anna Zervaki, FEMS President
The conference closed with Materials in transition: Education, research, use in industry and society, a debate on the future of materials with Professor Gerhard Schneider (President of DGM), Professor Heinrich Hofmann (Director of Powder Technology Laboratory, EPFL) and Dr Margarethe Hofmann (FEMS Past President).
Students and early career researchers had also the opportunity to attend the Tutorial day of workshops on additive manufacturing, tutorials on technology transfer and intellectual property management or Horizon Europe and advanced courses on climate neutrality by 2050: the future of energy or electron microscopy techniques.
In her closing remarks, professor Carvalho thanked all delegates, speakers and sponsors who attended and contributed to the conference, and the city of Coimbra and organising committee for supporting FEMS Junior EUROMAT 2022.
We look forward to seeing you all again at FEMS EUROMAT 2023 in Frankfurt!