The InnovaXN round 1 and 2 students were brought together for a half-day symposium on 6 December 2021 at the ESRF. Francesco Sette and Paul Langan, Directors General of the ESRF and ILL respectively, welcomed the students in the ESRF auditorium, while the majority of participants connected by zoom (with 117 virtual participants). Harald Reichert (ESRF) and Jacques Jestin (ILL), the co-directors of the programme, presented an overview of the InnovaXN programme.

Harald and Jacques described how the two facilities work with industry, and highlighted the role of the students as ambassadors to industry, making the link between their research at the facilities and applied research in industry.

Annalisa Pastore who will soon be replacing Harald Reichert as co-director of the programme jointly chaired the session of student presentations. The sixteen first-round students, who are now in their second year of research, presented their projects first. After a short pause, and exchange of first year students for second year students in the auditorium, a measure to limit the numbers present following the company’s social distancing guidelines, the twenty second round students gave introductions to their research.

All the presentations were very interesting and informative. The second year students were already able to show impressive results from experiments at the RI facilities.  See: playlist of selected videos.

InnovaXN round 1 students and first row: Paul Langan (Director General of ILL), Patrick Bruno (Head of ESRF Higher Education & Doctoral Programme Office), Francesco Sette (Director General of ESRF); second row: Peter Fouquet (Deputy Head of ILL Doctoral Programme) watching the presentations in the ESRF auditorium, while the majority of the audience followed via zoom.

Selected presentations

Playlist order:

1. Stabilization of positive electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries, Mattia Colalongo.

2. Molecular level understanding of cavity formation upon loading and unloading in cross-linked nanocomposites, Ilya Yakovlev.

3. Structural basis of human melanogenic enzymes, Yi-Min NG.

4. Investigating the interaction of C2H4 with Ag exchanged CHA by a combination of inelastic neutron scattering and DFT calculations, Gabrielli de Almeida.

5. Formation of liposomes – shining light (and neutrons) on an industrially relevant process, Fernanda Alvarado.

6. Molecular engineering of green polymer-surfactants by microfluidic SAS, Sofia Eriksson.

7. COVID-19 vaccines and the lipid nanoparticles that deliver them, Samuel Winnall.