The second Progress Meeting and Mid Term Check was hosted by Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and held at the UAB Casa de Convalescència from April 25-29, 2022. The event was organized in a hybrid format to allow all PIs to attend despite teaching obligations. All ESRs attended in person.
The second progress meeting of HORATES was divided into three parts: the mid term check with the project officer Giulia Moro of the REA, an international school on “Thermal Properties of Materials” and an oral presentation course for the ESRs.
In the following you will find a summary and some impressions of the event. A detailed schedule can be found in our last blog post.
Day 1
Monday, 25 April 2022
The Mid Term Check took place hybrid, with most of the HORATES members present and was divided into several blocks. Starting with an introduction by the project officer Giulia Moro and the coordinator Martijn Kemerink it continued with a Tour de table where all scientists-in-charge presented their research team and their role within the project. After a brief coordinator’s report where the progress of HORATES in the last 13 months was presented, the 15 ESRs introduced themselves, their background and their current research focus within HORATES. Moreover, both the ESRs and the coordinator had restricted sessions with the project officer Giulia Moro.
Day 2 & 3
Tuesday, 26 April 2022 and Wednesday, 27 April 2022
During the second day of the workshop, the ESRs attended lectures delivered live by four PIs from the different beneficiaries of HORATES: Igor Zozoulenko (LIU), Sebastian Reparaz (ICMAB), Mariano Campoy Quiles (ICMAB), and Anna Moya (Eurecat) as well as thee external experts: Claudio Melis (Cagliari), Oliver Fenwick (Queen Mary´s) and Clara Gómez (Universitat de Valencia). These lectures introduced the ESRs to different theoretical approaches to describe heat transport, methods to determine the thermal conductivity as well as heat transport in various material classes and the application of these kinds of materials in energy harvesting applications. Since the originally planned lecture by Stefano Ossicini on Ethics in Science was cancelled due to illness, Mariano Campoy Quiles stepped in at short notice with an interactive lecture on “Plastic Fantastic: how to become a successful (fraudulent) scientist” which triggered lively discussions among the attendees.
Day 3 also started with lectures, which thematically, however, represented a broadening of the horizon beyond the direct project goals of HORATES, namely “Thermal properties beyond thermoelectrics”.
The lectures of day 2&3 can be watched on ICMABs YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/IcmabCat
Day 4 & 5
Thursday, 28 April 2022 and Friday, 29 April 2022
The ESRs attended an oral presentation course for scientists given by Dr. Roni Wright. The training used a unique six threads approach where the ESRs learned and practiced all aspects of preparing and delivering a scientific presentation and acquired knowledge on how to improve their public speaking skills and to increase their critical awareness of effective presentation skills.
News piece of the event has been published here:
https://www.icmab.es/horates-midterm-meeting-international-school-on-thermoelectric-characterization