The 13th “Montpellier” Workshop for new researchers in glass science and application

This year the ICG “Montpellier” Summer School took place in Berlin, jointly hosted by BAM and ICG, immediately before the ICG Congress- June 28- July 2.

Program overviewed fundamentals in glass science emphasing structure-property relationships, experimental techniques, material simulations and tools that probe structure. Recognising that it is the Year of Glass the fos was on glasses and environment.

The lectures were world experts in their fields. A significant aspect of the workshop was student-centred projects that helped participants to develop their understanding by applying what they know to specific issues.

And here are points of views of our FunGlass PhD students:

Onat Basak:

“This workshop is one of the most well-known glass science workshops, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. The context of the lectures was extremely beneficial in understanding the fundamentals of glasses. Several key points about instruments like Raman and NMR spectroscopies are presented, and these key points will be useful for my future studies. It was also a pleasure to meet new colleagues. I shared my experiences with them and learned a lot. Overall, it was a positive experience, and I am grateful to the FunGlass organization for arranging my attendance at the ICG Summer School in Berlin.”

Martina Vitázková:

“The ICG Summer School was an interesting experience, it was attended by doctoral students, researchers in postdoc positions and many people working in some glass companies. We were through the first day separated to teams in which we worked on a projects and in this way it was really useful to work with people from another industries. The lectures were from various areas of material science, specialized in glass from a chemical and physical point of view. The course was really a very pleasant experience, very informative, but it’s nice to go there already with a decent foundation in materials engineering and in this way is possible to learn here really a lot of new things.”

Ahmed Gamal:

“It was a productive summer school full of new information and experience in glass formation, structure, properties, characterization, energetics, environment, and manufacturing. All lectures were presented by talented professors and teachers from different universities and companies from different countries like Germany,  UK, France, Netherland, Czech Republic, and Japan. The topics of the classes and tutorials were about glass and glass-ceramics thermodynamics, mass transfer or diffusion, chemical durability, NMR, XRD, mechanical properties, optical properties, and modelling. During ICG summer school at Berlin, all participants and PhD students worked on different projects and groups about new and innovative ideas in the future of glass science and applications in the different fields of life. Me, Onat and Martina joined and presented one project related to using bioactive glass in drug delivery and 3D printing applications.”

Katarina Heglasova:

“Everyday we were taking courses from famous professors in their field. In addition to this, groups were created from all attanders to work on projects. On last day of our summer school we were giving presentation about specific topic to compete ( it is really enjoyable and you have a chance to meet with new people from all around the world.) I was working in a group with topic EDUCATION FOR ADULTS ABOUT GLASS. I was giving a short speech about history of glasses. Moreover, if you have scientific questions, you can ask to professors and you have free time too except their classes.

You can also go and visit Berlin with your new friends. It is really cool place. I recommend you to have this experience :)”

Abel Ourgessa:

“The ICG summer school was a great opportunity to learn about glass in an exciting way. We had lectures about microstructure, chemical behavior and mechanical properties of glass with an interesting lecture about the sustainability of glass production. We were divided into groups (each group has members from different institutions) and did a project where we brainstorm our ideas about efficient ways of solving glass-related problems.   In my case, my team got a title related to sustainable raw materials where we come up with out-of-the-box ways of overcoming such problems. We made a presentation of our project and got second place for the best presentation and idea.

It was a great place to meet with researchers and PhD students with similar study areas and to create a network for future collaboration.”