Ostrava hosted the first summer school of the European SAN4FUEL project, in which scientists from the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technologies (CEET) of VŠB-TUO, CATRIN of Palacký University, University of Trieste and Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, are collaborating.
The participants discussed not only the development of new materials using atomic engineering, their characterisation, but also the preparation of publications for prestigious journals and the possibilities to succeed in Horizon Europe project calls. The meeting was held in the multifunctional auditorium of the Lower Vítkovice area as an ” opening act of the conference” to the international conference Nano Ostrava 2023.
“Within the SAN4FUEL project, a total of three summer schools will be held, the Ostrava one being the first in the sequence. Especially for PhD students and postdocs, we prepared educational lectures on the main topic of our project, which is hydrogen production by solar water splitting, electrochemical transformation of waste carbon dioxide and especially the preparation of new materials through engineering at the level of individual atoms, but also talked about other issues that could broaden the horizons of young scientists,” said the main organizer of the summer school and principal investigator of the project Štěpán Kment.
As cooperation within an international team and sharing of experience is an important part of the project, in addition to concrete scientific results, other issues were also discussed at the summer school. Among the lecturers was renowned expert in the field of electrocatalysis and catalysis Paolo Fornasiero, who spoke from the position of editor of the scientific journal ACS Catalysis about working with data, preparing a scientific article or how to avoid the most common mistakes and ethical transgressions. Andrea Nogova from CATRIN spoke about the possibilities of using existing collaborations in other European projects, while Eirini Ioannou focused on issues of personal development, coaching and time management with regard to scientific activities.
The summer school was associated with the NanoOstrava 2023 conference, where the SAN4FUEL project researchers will present some of their results. Further summer schools will be held with partners in Italy and Germany. In addition to these, joint workshops or exchange visits are also foreseen.