We are a group of four young enthusiastic scientists in the area of catalysis who first met last year at the EFCATS Young Scientist Contest. Motivated by the fruitful connections that we built during the contest and encouraged by EFCATS board, we decided to establish a European network for young scientists and professionals working in the area of catalysis - the Young European Catalysis Network, abbreviated YEuCat.
With YEuCat we aim to create a central platform specifically for young professionals in the catalysis community to share knowledge and resources, build fruitful cooperations, encourage national and international societal commitment, and promote catalysis as a key technology to address current and future environmental and societal challenges. Attached you also find our mission statement with an outline of envisioned activities.
We will officially launch YEuCat during EuropaCat 2019 in Aachen, Germany. During the session, interested participants will engage themselves in teams and brainstorm to decide on the activities that they would like to achieve for the first year of YEuCat.
More informations: http://europacat2019.eu/programme.html
The mission of the network is to catalyse young generations in their way to become experts in catalysis.
The current and the future generation of young researchers. In practice, from undergraduates to early-career researchers, from both academia and industry.
The current generation of young researchers will be catalysed by addressing the specific issues encountered when carrying out research in catalysis, not only at each career level, but also when changing career stages. The future generations will be catalysed by promoting catalysis as a science towards a better future.
The difficulties faced by young researchers are often related to either a lack of specific information/knowledge (both scientific and career-related) or a lack of material resources to conduct research. Both challenges can be addressed by exchanging knowledge, preferably among fellow young researchers. Some possible actions are:
● Organising side events/sessions at EuropaCat focusing on hot topics for young researchers. This will be crucial for young researchers to meet each other personally and to network
● Supporting the organization of the Young Catalysis Challenges (in cooperation with EFCATS)
● Arranging webinars on different topics in Catalysis or on funding possibilities, given mostly by young researchers. A few topics will be proposed by YEuCat, but the decision will be taken via polls to ensure the relevance of the topic to young researchers
● Networking amongst young researchers
o Establishing a network/database of young researchers in catalysis, including non-EU and industrial ones. The focus will be on individual young researchers and their skills. The goal is also that a link remains after changing positions
o At a later stage, connection to an app facilitating dissemination of news and events as well as requests for advice
The new generation is deeply concerned with societal challenges, but chemistry (and catalysis in particular) is not perceived as a key science to a better future. The main goal is thus to change the perception of chemistry and chemical engineering as an established and mature industry and demonstrate how catalysis can be world changing. Some possible actions are:
● Promotion of catalysis for (high-school) students, benefiting from a small age gap and focusing on dedicated divulgation through social media.
● Establishing a Young Catalyst Researcher award based on science communication to young audiences
● Distribution of scholarships for high-school summer internships
In the short term, the goal is to kick-off the activities and launch YEuCat: official constitution by January 2019 with the first event and elections being held at EuropaCat 2019. The initial form of the database will be complied by the summer of 2019 and the webinar programme will be start in 2020.
