ACerS officials and ECerS officials agreed on some intersociety collaborations when they met this week in Limoges, France, during the ECerS biennial conference. Standing: Richard Brow (ACerS president), Agnes Smith , Stuart Hampshire, Francis Cambier. Sitting: Carmen Baudin, Ann Leriche (president of ECerS). Credit: ACerS.
ACerS president, Richard Brow, and ACerS executive director, Charlie Spahr traveled this week to Limoges, France, to attend the 13th International Conference of the European Ceramic Society. They report that the four day biennial event was a major success, with more than 1,000 people in attendance and an excellent technical program. (It goes without saying that the French hospitality and cuisine have been excellent, too!)
The group pictured met on Thursday during the conference to develop ways for ACerS and ECerS to cooperate with each other to benefit the broader ceramics community. Many ideas were discussed, including more active cooperation in developing symposia for each other’s meetings and promotion of our respective societies’ activities on each other’s web sites.
“One of the more promising concepts agreed upon was to provide support for a (graduate) student exchange, in which students would travel for a semester of study and research to universities in Europe or the USA,” says Spahr.
Both societies committed to seeking funding to support this important initiative.
Several ECerS members, including Ann Leriche (current president) will be traveling to Daytona Beach, Fla., for the ACerS 38th International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites for a follow up meeting and to further strengthen ties between ACerS and ECerS.