Charl in Thailand … exploring collaborations and doing recruitment!

Charl is currently in Thailand, with a number of academics from the UoB (including Dr Emma Turner from the BCS) and Janie Digby-Lee from the UoB’s International Office. Charl and Janie attended an OCSC Placement day on Friday, as well as various recruitment events.

They also visited Harrow International School earlier the week, where Charl spoke to science students about his research. Charl and Emma will be visiting Kasetsart University tomorrow, talking about the BCFN and the BCS, amongst others!

Olli Ikkala, Nikolay Houbenov (from Helsinki) and the White Bear

Long-standing collaborators, Prof Olli Ikkala and Dr Nikolay Houbenov from the Molecular Materials Group at Aalto University (Helsinki, Finland), visited the FRG on Thursday and Friday. In order to welcome them, and all the new arrivals in the Faul and Hall groups, we went to the White Bear!

WhiteBear_1

Olli ended his visit on Friday afternoon with a stimulating presentation in the Centre for NSQI.

James and Piotr presenting at the BCFN conference

James and Piotr, both BCFN-funded students, presented at the BCFN’s annual student conference.  As a senior PhD student in the current BCFN student cohorts, James gave an (excellent!) talk. Piotr presented a poster on his latest results!

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A great day with some very exciting science!

Yaozu’s paper in MRC appeared online!

Yaozu’s paper on the preparation and use of macrocyclic amine-linked oligocarbazole hollow microspheres as heavy metal sorbents has been published online by Macromolecular Rapid Communications!

YaozuMRC

Congratulations to Yaozu and colleagues!

Funding to collaborate with the FRG

The Royal Society (RS) have announced a number of schemes that allow for international travel and exchange, and to explore opportunities for building lasting networks, or for bilateral visits to strengthen emerging collaborations. These schemes cover travel, subsistence and a small contribution to research costs. Applicants must be from:

China, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico or Turkey

INTERNAL DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 12th of October 2014.

Newton Mobility Grants:

This award is currently available to international researchers that want to strengthen the research and innovation capacity by visiting or sending staff and students to the UK.

Newton Advanced Fellowships:

This scheme aims to develop science and innovation partnerships that promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries.

General Eligibility Criteria:

Applicants must have a PhD or equivalent research experience and hold a permanent or fixed-term contract in an eligible university or research institute, which must span the duration of the project. Applicants should have no more than 15 years of postdoctoral experience. Collaborations should focus on a single project involving overseas-based scientist (“the Applicant”) and UK-based scientist (“the Co-applicant”).

If you wish to apply, please contact Dr Faul as soon as possible.

ACR Review published online

Charl’s review in Accounts of Chemical Research, entitled “Ionic Self-Assembly for Functional Hierarchical Nanostructured Materials” appeared online!

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A great opportunity to provide an overview of Charl’s collaborative efforts over the past decade, and to thank many colleagues who contributed to the far-reaching ionic self-assembly approach!

 

Faul & Hall groups enjoy a day on the beach!

With the sun shining and time for a break from the lab, the Hall and Faul groups headed out to South Wales to Rhossili Bay for a day of swimming, beach games, bbq’ing and fun!

Some photos from the top of the cliffs …

and down on the beach …

Panoramic

 

Exciting science in Berlin and Golm!

Charl spent two days in Germany last week, visiting friends, collaborators and ex-colleagues at the TUBerlin, the newly opened BasCat joint laboratories, and the MPI for Colloids and Interfaces (where Charl spent 4 years).

It was a great time to catch up, but more importantly, to learn about and be inspired by excellent science! Very exciting!

Jasper van der Gucht and Paul Nealey visiting Bristol … and James presenting!

We have the pleasure of having Jasper (from Wageningen, the Netherlands) and Paul (from the Institute of Molecular Engineering, Chicago, USA) visiting Bristol as part of the BCFN‘s seminar series. James, from the FRG, also gave a short talk as part of the afternoon’s activities.

Jasper Paul

Lots of exciting science, great talks, and very nice to have two excellent speakers from outside Bristol here!