SGK/SSCr: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Kristallographie
2022 was all around a very busy year for the Swiss Society for Crystallography (SSCr) with a number of ongoing and new initiatives concentrating on our outreach and the support of young members and non-members, which are presented shortly at the end of this summary. The highlights of the actual year 2022 follow hereafter:
The Howard Flack Crystallographic Lecture Series had a successful 4th edition, with a total of six lectures given by the awarded Flack Lecturer Lukáš Palatinus (Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague), one of the leading scientists behind the technological and theoretical developments of 3D electron diffraction, a method that is reaching maturity right now, and that aims at solving crystal structures from nanometric crystallites. Lectures were given at ETHZ, PSI, Basel, Bern, Lausanne, and Geneva, and were attended by 50-100 colleagues from in- and outside academia. Next year’s Flack Lectures (2023) will be on the investigations of local order using total scattering and the pair distribution function analysis, and be given by the 2023 Flack Lecturer Simon Billinge (Columbia, New York). The 2023 topic will be of great interest to a broad audience working on diverse types of “real materials”, including nanocrystals and amorphous phases (Pharmaceuticals, Metal-Organic Frameworks…)
The annual meeting of the SSCr took place in Bern on September 15th. Organized by Simon Grabowsky (University of Bern), the participation was above average and, notably, attracted a number of young colleagues that were not yet members of our society. This was also owed to a session devoted to preliminary discussions on a new workshop the society is planning to launch, which approximately 20 students from all over Switzerland participated in and expressed their needs and wishes on format and topic of this workshop. Paula Abdala (ETHZ) has taken over the responsibilities of the secretary, new board members will be elected in 2024 and 25. The annual meeting 2023 will take place at the University of Zürich on September 8th, organized by Bernhard Spingler and running under the title “Newest Developments in Crystallography”.
Our society is continuing to revamp the amount, quality and type of our outreach. In this context, it is notable that our social media, which was launched approximately one year ago, is now globally one of the most followed accounts that deal with crystallography and its applications. twitter.com/Swisscrystallog
The two most relevant crystallographic conferences in 2022, the European Powder Diffraction Conference (EPDIC) in Sibenik, and the European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM) in Versailles, were well attended by members of the society. The SSCr is at present evaluating a bid to host the EPDIC in 2026, in Crans Montana, VS.
The Congress of the International Union of Crystallography will take place in Melbourne (Australia) in 2023. With the aim of improving our outreach and extending our visibility as well as our network, the SSCr, end of 2022, proposed a satellite workshop to the IUCr committee, titled “A practical approach to synchrotron experiments”, which was unanimously accepted and will take place on August 21st, 2023, before the IUCr congress. This workshop is organized 100% by the SSCr under the lead of Dubravka Sisak-Jung (Dectris), making optimal use of our international network (six speakers from three continents). At present there are 50 registrations.
During the SSCr annual meeting in Bern 2022 an initiative of the board to launch an annual student workshop was presented to the general assembly. The organization of the first edition, focusing on Small Angle X-ray scattering, is nearly finished and the workshop will precede our annual meeting on September 7th, held at ETHZ, and open for registration soon. This workshop will attempt to respond to the evolving needs of students inside Switzerland, and will be taylor-made each year, based on feedback of the audience. With such events the SSCr wants to contribute to education, in particular in view of current regular university curricula that rarely include topics on X-ray scattering and crystallography, while the number of researchers using the related methods has never been higher in Switzerland.
Two issues of the Society’s Newsletter: No. 107 and No. 108
Howard Flack Crystallographic Lecture series organized by the SSCr, November 2022, with lectures on Electron Crystallography given by Lukáš Palatinus (Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) at ETHZ, PSI, Basel, Bern, Lausanne, Geneva.
Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society for Crystallography (University of Bern, September 15th, 2022)
The Swiss Society for Crystallography SSCr is an adhering body of the International Union of Crystallography, IUCr, represented in the general assembly by its IUCr delegates Pascal Schouwink and Simon Grabowsky. A number of Swiss crystallographers are active members in IUCr Commissions.
The Swiss Society for Crystallography SSCr is part of the European Crystallographic Association, represented by Anthony Linden as delegate. The ECA met in Versaills , 2022.
Three travel grants were awarded to young SSCr members in 2022 (500 CHF support for poster or workshops, 750 CHF support for oral). Aurelio Borzi (EMPA), Epdic17 conference, oral presentation. Justine Schwarte (University of Fribourg), 8th EuChemS congress, oral presentation. Yaser Balmohammadi (University of Bern), Erice school on crystallography: diffuse scattering (workshop participation, poster presentation).
Two issues of the Society’s Newsletter: No. 107 and No. 108