An important part of science and scientifc research includes connecting with wider communities, whether they are academic, industrial or the public in general, which is often achieved by dissemination (e.g. giving a talk at scientific conferences, industrial workshops or a public lecture), networking at workshops, conferences and industrial showcase events, and providing training courses for example in fundamental theory and applications of specific computational software. For scientists involved in the Computational Collaborative Projects (CCPs) these activities form an integral part of their work, and July has been particulary busy for members of CCP5.
Professor Ilian Todorov was an invited speaker at the EMMC-CSA Workshop on Industrial impact of materials modelling in Turin, July 8th to 10th, where he gave a presentation entitled “DL_MESO: The UK's DPD Vehicle for Academic and Industrial Collaboration" about the skills and expertise within the Computational Chemistry Group, specifically the impact of DL_MESO as the modelling vehicle supported by two H2020 projects VIMMP and E-CAM.
On July 17th Ilian took the opportunity to network and keep abreast of the latest cyber security developments at the 'Advanced Research, IT Moderrnisation & Cyber Security' workshop held in London by Atos.
July was also very busy for the CCP scientists who took part in the 25th edition of the annual CCP5 Summer School held at Durham University from 8th to 18th. This summer school is the oldest and most popular continuous molecular simulation school in the world, and this year attracted 152 applicants, resulting in a total of 74 attendees from 14 different countries including the US and China.
The intense school programme comprised 28 morning lectures and 19 afternoon practicals. Students were exposed to a variety of subjects, ranging from programming and basics of molecular simulations to advanced topics such as First Principles, Bio-molecules and Mesoscale simulation methods. Sixteen lecturers were involved in the school from UK institutions with four of them being from STFC Daresbury Laboratory, SCD – Dr Sarah Fegan (Life Sciences), Dr Barry Searle (Physics), Dr Michael Seaton (Chemistry) and Dr Alin Elena (Chemistry) who also coordinated the practical sessions. Thirty-two of the students decided to study Fortran with the rest opting for Python as their programming course; 28 took First principles methods as their advanced course, 24 took Mesoscale Methods with the rest opting for methods to simulate bio-molecules.
Following a well-established tradition, there were poster and oral presentation competitions. Winners of the oral presentations were 1st prize, Lolita Hilaire, Ecole Doctorale Science Chimiques Balard, France and runner up, Margaret Davis, Syracuse University, USA. Poster prizes were shared by Victoria Ariel Bjørnestad, (1st prize) University of Oslo, Norway; Susana Marin Aguilar, (2nd Prize) Université Paris-Sud, France; Valentin Vassilev Galindo, (3rd prize) University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg and a special prize, Junyoung Hwang, Imperial College London, UK. All prize winners were congratulated and handed their prizes by CCP5 chair Prof. Neil Allan during the celebratory dinner at Durham Castle. The school was rated a success by students, lecturers and the organising committee. More information and the full programme are available on the CCP5 Summer School website
