MaNEP Science Meetings

2009 Review Panel Meeting

The next MaNEP Review Panel Meeting will take place – for a little change - at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), on May, 14th and 15th 2009. This year, a special emphasis will be put on the scientific aspects through the presentation of the 8 projects of the upcoming 3rd phase (2009-2012).

Martin Peter Colloquium / MaNEP Topical Meeting

The 3rd Martin Peter Colloquium will take place on Friday, June 19th 2009 at 16h at the Ecole de Physique (24, quai Ansermet) in Geneva. Our guest, Prof. Z.X. Shen (picture), from Standford University, will speak about the extraordinary advances on photo emission experiments.

As usual, the day will start at 10h30 with a MaNEP Topical Meeting. This year’s focus is on “Spectroscopic properties and quantum materials”. We plan to select 8 to 9 young speakers to present recent results. Forum members who wish to propose a talk by one of their team members should submit an abstract (10 lines) to fabienne.hartmeier@unige.ch . Please mention “MaNEP topical meeting 19 june” in the subject line.
[ Detailed Schedule : http://www.manep.ch/en/events ]

2009 - Swiss Workshop Meeting at « Les Diablerets »

The next MaNEP meeting on novel electronic materials will take place from August, 26th to 28th, 2009 at Les Diablerets in Switzerland. About 10 invited speakers will take part in the 9 scheduled sessions. Deadline for registration and abstract submission : May 18th.
[ Registration/ info : http://dpmc.unige.ch/manep/swm09/index.html ]

Feedback on the 1st MaNEP Winterschool

For the first time, the traditional MaNEP Summerchool became a... Winterschool. It took place from January 11 to 16, 2009 and gathered some 70 participants, some of them enjoying some skiing on their free time. The event received excellent feedbacks, especially on the high-quality of the talks. As to know whether we’ll be back to summer time in 2011, this has still to be decided… To be followed ! [ click picture to enlarge ]

Tech Transfer

MaNEP Alumni Project

Since the launch of the MaNEP Alumni Group on Linkedin ( link ), 33 members joined. A significant proportion of the new members are located outside of Switzerland, which indicates an interest in reconnecting with our Swiss organization. New members continue to join, with PhDs, Post-docs and professors. It is not possible to know how much networking is currently taking place among MaNEP Alumnis, but there certainly is. Hopefully we will hear about it through testimonies.(MK)

Fostering collaborations between SMEs and Universities

The KTI/ CTI agency just launched a new initiative to foster collaborations between SMEs and Universities. SMEs which do not have regular means to perform R&D may apply for a CHF 7'500 .- cheque to initiate a research project with a University, an EPF or University of Applied Science. The money can be used for development and/or proofs of concepts, feasibility studies, market attractiveness studies, etc. The funds are transferred to the chosen academic partner.

First Start-Up Seminar

On April 9th, a startup seminar was organized at by MaNEP at UniGE. The speakers were the three founders of the Street2Start ( www.street2start.org )association. They presented their model for fostering startup creation at the idea level, as they regret that 90% of the ideas get lost before their creator even start thinking about building a business around them. Their talk generated many questions from the audience composed of students, PhDs, post-docs and professors. The Street2start concept had a reassuring and demystifying effect on some of the attendees. There were comments such as “when I was a student, I’d never have had interest for start-up creation. But, now, after this presentation, I have a much more positive image of entrepreneurship”. (MK)

MaNEP keynote speech on Superconductivity at Inforum

On March 17th, Dr Michel Decroux and Dr Louis Antognazza (MaNEP/UniGE) delivered a keynote speech at Inforum ( http://www.opi.ch/Inforum/tabid/177/Default.aspx ), an annual conference/exhibition which presents novelties in Information and Communication Technologies. Superconductivity was chosen this year as a special focus point. Michel Decroux presented superconductivity and the innovation it has enabled to this day, before Louis Antognazza pointed out the assets of devices currently using superconductivity: medical imaging devices, SQUID magnetometers, superconducting cables, etc. He then described the potential of superconductors in the future: superconducting computers, single photon detectors, etc. The public were both puzzled and fascinated by this emerging yet already mainstream field.(MK)

Education and Outreach

MaNEP’s art-science project

Etienne Krähenbühl ( http://www.ekl.ch/ ) (right on picture) is a Swiss sculptor who is fascinated by metals with unusual properties. He thus quickly accepted MaNEP’s proposal at the end of 2008 to create the very first piece of art based on superconductors and displaying the magnetic levitation phenomenon. The process involves many technical challenges related to the necessary cooling of the device, so Etienne has been joined by a team comprising physicist Dr Lidia Favre-Quattropani (left on picture) and engineer Jean-Gabriel Bosch (who is also responsible for the PhysiScope http://www.physiscope.ch )). To immortalize this unique collaboration between science, engineering and art, a documentary is currently being filmed that might coproduced by television. When finished, the piece-of-art will be installed at the Geneva Physics Institute, where MaNEP has its headquarters. A big launch event will be organized either in December 2009 or early in 2010.

[ MaNEP news, page 2 ]