Mission

Modern crystallography is entering its 2nd century of life, being as vital and challenging as a young discipline. In the last decades, crystallography has experienced a rapid advance concerning not only the fundamental knowledge but also the instrumentation and the automation of software and tools for structure solution, refinement and analysis. Such innovations have produced an enormous impact towards a deeper understanding of the properties of matter and of the functionality of materials and molecular entities of all dimensions, as witnessed by well-recognized novel findings.

On the other hand, automated techniques typically discourage critical thinking and constitute a serious risk for young crystallographers, who may lose the capability of evaluating the accuracy and goodness of data and critically analysing the results. This risk has been increased by the reduction of fundamental Academic courses in crystallography all over Europe.

The ECS1 is directed to young researchers and Ph.D. students involved in different fields of structural sciences, including physics, biology, chemistry, mineralogy, materials science, cultural heritage. It aims at diffusing and sharing the idea of crystallography as a unique discipline: “crystallography is an excellent example of the universality of science”, to cite the Proclamation of 2014 as International Year of Crystallography. The School will provide the students with instruments for acquiring a deep know-how and a strong background on the fundamentals of crystallography. Students will also gain consciousness of progresses, limitations and perspectives of the crystallographic theories and methods, and of how they can be adapted to the different “flavours” of structural science, ranging from small molecule to large macromolecular assemblies. The fil-rouge of the multi-faceted methods to be delivered in this School is to provide students with fundamental interpretative and predictive information and ideas for further scientific developments.

Different facets of crystallography will be explored, and expectations for research in the next century discussed and analysed through a series of reviews from renowned teachers. Such contributions will be collected in the Educational Book associated to the School, with the aim of inspiring and suggesting ideas for novel research projects in crystallography.