Nanosciences
Events and Profile
An integral part of CENIDE’s role in coordinating nanoscience activities at the UDE is to represent them to the outside world, raise the (international) visibility of our combined strengths and competencies in nanoscience, and promote knowledge transfer between science and academia, industry and the general public. CENIDE regularly appears in local, regional and national reporting and the specialist media.
1400 – stands for the impressive number of visitors who attended the WissensNacht Ruhr (Ruhr Night of Science) at the Nano Energy Technology Center in the fall of 2014 and took part in a variety of activities as an introduction to the day-to-day workings of nano research. Another informative event, this time on wheels, took place when the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s double-decker nanoTruck rolled in by special invitation of CENIDE to share its fascinating insights into nanotechnology over a three-day period. Other opportunities for the interested public to learn more about current research topics included the MPI Lectures in cooperation with the Max-Planck institutes in Mülheim and the talks and guided laboratory tours as part of the UDE’s Uni-Colleg series.
10 – this is a number we looked back on with pride in 2015. Ten years of CENIDE marked our first milestone anniversary, which we celebrated in fitting style with around 200 invited guests in the summer. But it was not just a time for looking back on past achievements, and we have been working with all our energy towards the future, as the strategy workshop “CENIDE: next steps” can testify. In it, we gained many valuable and constructive insights that inform both our profile development and new scientific goals.
One of these goals is to encourage greater dialogue between science and industry as the basis of cooperation. In working towards this goal, CENIDE has created an extremely successful event format in the RUHR-Symposium “Functional Materials”, in which important representatives of industry and science have taken part. The inaugural event in 2014 focused on the automotive sector, while in 2015 the chemical industry and the topic of catalysis attracted lively interest from industry. Another of our key activities is supporting young researchers. Here a job forum helped students and graduates find out more about their career prospects, while the newly established CENIDE doctoral network gave young researchers at the UDE excellent opportunities in its regular meetings and excursions to exchange information on day-to-day work in nanoscience and current research topics.
5.7 million euros – that is the value of the equipment in the microscopy center of the Interdisciplinary Center for Analytics on the Nanoscale (ICAN). The DFG Core Facility went into full operation in November 2014 following its official inauguration and is home to the equipment, methods and expertise in analytics on the nanometer scale at the UDE. The Center’s team demonstrated how basic research in the natural sciences flows at ICAN into the development of new materials for practical application a short time later at the 6th Nano-Conference in 2014 and again during the Werkstoffwoche (Materials Week) in 2015. NRW science minister Svenja Schulze was among the visitors to discover just how fascinating laser-generated nanoparticles can be at the Barcikowski research group’s booth during the Hannover Messe in 2014. The Nannen research group meanwhile lit up (energy-efficiently) the 2014 Nanofair in Dresden with a presentation of its research work on LEDs.