Notes

Frankfurt Executive Board meeting

During the EuCheMS Executive Board meeting, hosted by the GDCh in Frankfurt, there were many relevant topics on the table.

Regarding EuCheMS Chemistry Congresses, it has been decided to encourage a limited number of subject specific symposia running within the main Congress. An internal procedure was drafted accordingly.

2019 will represent the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev publishing the periodic table in the form that we know it. EuCheMS supports the bid for UNESCO to designate 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table.

We have also created a group with a view to trying to place a periodic table in every primary/elementary school in Europe.

EuCheMS will be implementing in the near future a landmark scheme for significant chemists, places or events in Europe.

A 10-hour course on ethics in chemistry is currently being prepared. It will be made available throughout Europe for use in the early stages of PhD training to address the current lack of teaching of ethics within chemistry programmes.

A group was set up charged with deciding what advice, if any, EuCheMS should give to the EU negotiators about the effect on chemistry of the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

A proposal to create a Working Party on Formulation was received and is now out for possible comments. The new Working Party should be put before the General Assembly in Rome for approval. A similar situation exists for a proposed senior members’ group.

David Cole-Hamilton
EuCheMS President

European Chemist professional designation

The European Chemist Register (ECR) is maintained by EuCheMS in order to help chemists in Europe who are members of national chemical societies to demonstrate their professional status, experience, competence, appreciation of health, safety and environmental issues, and international standards and ethical principles especially in maintaining the honour and dignity of the profession and the public interest. Professionals, who are included in the register are entitled to use the designatory letters “EurChem” and to use the EurChem logo on business cards and similar documents and credentials. EuCheMS may use the professionals from the register for nominations for expert services when necessary.

It has been agreed with the Royal Society of Chemistry that their status of the “Chartered Chemist” award is equivalent to the EurChem professional designation.

More info can be found at http://www.euchems.eu/members-3/european-chemist-designation/

Pavel Drašar
Member of EuCheMS Executive Board

Science Me!

Science Me! is an opportunity for researchers to present their science to a general audience in a playful, inventive and unconventional atmosphere, where the spectators become evaluators of the shows and get to test their own sensitivity and understanding.

During a Science Me! competition, the rules are simple: each team of up to two scientists proposes a 10-minute show aimed at experimenting, demonstrating or presenting a phenomenon or theory, and the performance is scored by the public (applause-meter weighted by the number of spectators and by the applause duration) and by a jury of specialists in science communication (assessment on criteria including compliance to safety regulations, novelty of the subjects, didactics and explanations, interactivity with the public, visual aspects and fun, originality, artistic and poetic inputs, interdisciplinarity, scientific relevance, simplicity, respect of the time allotted).

All domains of science and techniques, fundamental or applied, cutting-edge research or thoroughly demonstrated basics, are welcome to compete, so long as the wish to interact with the public and sharing a passion for science fuels the participating teams. Aimed at promoting the dialogue between non-specialists and scientists, Science Me! contributes to a better perceived image of STEM among young and adult citizens.

At the successful first edition of Science Me! in 2016, at Geneva, Switzerland) 16 teams from all over Europe and c. 2,000 spectators met during a weekend of exhilarating shows organised by Chimiscope, the chemical edutainment platform of the University of Geneva; (http://chimiscope.ch). Now, the event is becoming fully official and receives a European label with the patronage of EuCheMS, FEMS (Federation of the European Microbiological Societies), and soon EPS (European Physical Society), for its second edition, Science Me! 2017, which will take place on June 11–13, 2017, in Hannover, Germany, during the IdeenExpo science fair which brings an audience of about 350,000 visitors. The event is organised by Zauberhafte Physik, the outreach team of physicists of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany.

Details on the event and on-line registration are available on http://ScienceMe.unige.ch. A look at the videos of the 2016 shows will probably help to finely tune your show into a winning one!

Didier Perret
University of Geneva, Science Me Steering committee