Scope

Topics

Each European School on Magnetism provides a broad spectrum of fundamentals on Magnetism, possibly complemented by a series of lectures focused on a dedicated topic that changes from school to school. The fundamentals include topics such as magnetic fields and moments, exchange interactions and magnetic ordering, magnetic anisotropy, magneto-transport, temperature effects, magnetization reversal processes. The topics covered as well as the lecturers are suggested by the European advisory committee. A scientific chair is assigned to each School, with an expertise fit for the School. The task of the chair is to coordinate the program ahead of the School, and ensure its smooth realization on-site.

Attendees

The school is addressed mainly to young scientists, both PhD students and post-docs. It is open to all communities of magnetism: experimentalists and theoreticians, physists, chemists or other communities, from the acedemics or from companies.

The number of attendees is limited to about one hundered, for practical purposes and also with a view to promote a good interaction with the lecturers. Due to the number of requests for participation usually exceeding this figure, registration proceeds in two stages. First a call for requests for participation is launched. Requests need to be supported by a motivation letter and a letter from an advisor or recommending person. About 100 potential participants are then selected from the requests, and a waiting list is created. In a second stage only those applicants selected are invited to register.

The fees for the School are kept to a very moderate level to encourage participation, thanks to an effort on the budget and support from various partners. In very rare and well motivated cases scholarships may be granted to partly or fully waive these fees, when cost of registration would clearly prevent attendance.

Active means of learning

The duration of the School is typically ten days, with a view to favor a deep and broad understanding of the topics addressed. The core of the school is a series of lectures given by prominent scientists in the field, selected by the European Advisory Committee.The lectures are self-supported on each topic, so that no particular academic background is strictly necessary. The supporting slides are made available to the students and the broad community through our repository.

Many aspects of the School are designed to favor interactive learning: questions are encouraged during the course of the lectures, as well as during specially scheduled question sessions (typically 8h); students attend at least two practicals (analytics, experimental or computer-based) 2h or more each; a library of books pertaining to all aspects of Magnetism is made available.

Besides fundamental lectures, several lecturers are selected from companies. They provide an overview of their working topic and conditions. They will be available for discussion with all academic members who consider turning to the industry.

Frequency

The school is held yearly, except those years when the Summer School of the IEEE Magnetics Society is held in Europe.