First CPE Winter School

The Centre for Plastic Electronics hosted its first annual winter school in Bergun, Switzerland

 

Top row from left to right: David Beesley, David James, Calum McAndrew and Joe Juozapavicius. Bottom row from left to right: Paul Westacott, Sophie Armstrong-Brown, Stephen Logan, Roland Piper, George Barnes, Natalie Stingelin, Paul Stavrinou and Martin Heeney

The Centre for Plastic Electronics held its first winter school in January 2011 in the magnificent ski resort of Bergün, Switzerland. Over 50 participants from the CPE made the trip, among them the first cohort of PE-DTC students. The impressive line-up of speakers included the PE-DTC Director, Dr Paul Stavrinou as well as CPE directors, Professors Donal Bradley and Jenny Nelson. The week’s schedule was further enhanced by an appearance from guest speaker, Professor Paul Smith from ETH Zurich who regaled the audience with tantalising tales of polymer processing. The full schedule of over 20 hours of lectures can be found here.

All participants made full use of the resort’s fabulous surroundings during the afternoon breaks and thoroughly enjoyed a variety of outdoor activities, such as cross country skiing, snowboarding and sledging. Every evening, the hotel staff, Mr Walter Weber and his family treated their guests to delectable Swiss specialties, and even organised a highly enjoyable fondue extravaganza. The event proved extremely successful in terms of networking opportunities within the CPE group and chemists, physicists and material scientists were able to forge close bonds that have already resulted in new collaborations. Plans are currently underway for the second instalment of what is to become the CPE’s annual flagship event. For more information on the second CPE winter school, please visit our “upcoming events” web page.