10/10/2024
Bertrand DUPE, the General Chair of the European School on Magnetism (ESM) and Stuart CAVILL, Chair for ESM2024, look back at ESM2024 held last month in York and mention the steps ahead for the school.
Dear colleagues,
The European School on Magnetism was held this year from the 27th of August to the 6th of September in York, United Kingdom. As usual, the aim of the school was to invest in the training of a new generation of research scientists and engineers, mostly at the stage of PhD candidates. The school was held in a hybrid format, with 101 participants attending onsite, and circa 35 attending online. This hybrid format was very successful, thanks to our experience with online formats cumulated since 2020.
As in previous years, ESM offered a first week of lectures on a broad range of fundamental topics in Magnetism, followed in the second week by lectures on a specific theme. The theme this year was "Magnetism for energy efficient devices". Onsite and online attendees had shared lectures and round table discussions, and were both offered dedicated small-group practical and tutorial sessions. There was a rich diversity of tutorial sessions on offer this year across 8 different topics. Every attendee had the opportunity to take part in 2 or 3 tutorials. A strong focus was put on career development and industry this year, with talks from three industrial colleagues from Hirst Magnetic Instruments, Oxford Instruments and Durham Magneto Optics as well as a presentation on the advantages of a PhD from a career perspective. In addition, the participants were offered four hours of question & answer sessions, poster teasers and presentations sessions and two sessions related to diversity: Women in Magnetism & Equal Opportunities led by Claire Donnelly. Finally, the lecture given by Stuart Cavill on Magnetism for Energy Efficient Devices was simultaneously streamed as an EMA plenary lecture, gathering in total around 300 participants. All ESM2024 lectures, including this one, were recorded and are already available to view on the ESM web pages, along with the supporting slides. We encourage you to share them with interested students and colleagues.
ESM2025 will be held in Liège, Belgium from 30 June to 11 July 2025. Chaired by Bertrand Dupé, Sebastian Meyer, Eric Bousquet and Philippe Ghosez, it will aim to shed new light on the role of topology for low energy spintronics. ESM2025 will be a good opportunity to improve novel teaching strategies based on the experience gained during previous hybrid ESM events combined with the increased familiarity using the online social platform Discord. As a result, we propose to shorten the lectures, allowing more time for in-depth tutorials both on-site and online. We hope that this will facilitate a personalised experience for each participant with increased interactions between participants and lecturers.
All young research scientists: stay tuned until the next call for participation at the beginning of 2025!
Best regards,
Bertrand DUPE, Officer for Higher Education, along with:
Stuart CAVILL, Chair of ESM2024