News

This year, due to the postponement of the 2021 ECerS conference, the contest took place as a parallel event of the 14th ECerS Conference for Young Scientists in Ceramics, CYSC-2021, which was organised by the Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad, from 20th to 23rd October 2021.

There were 19 students competing that were selected by their National Ceramic Society:

• Austria: Maximilian Staudacher
• Belgium: Chloé Goutagny
• Croatia: Arijeta Bafti
• Czech Republic: Soňa Hříbalová
• Finland: Ashish Mohite
• France: Christelle Chauffeton
• Germany: Kira Schlesier
• Hungary: Nikolett Hegedüs
• Italy: Nicola Gilli
• Poland: Dawid Kozień
• Romania: Cristian Radu
• Russia: Veronika S. Buinevich
• Serbia: Marija Egerić
• Slovak Republic: Susanta Sengupta
• Slovenia: Hermina Hudelja
• Spain: Álvaro Eguiluz Castro
• The Netherlands: Nikos Kyriakou
• Turkey: Yigithan Tufan
• United Kingdom: Else Ellermann

11 participated to the contest on site and travelled to Novi Sad, 7 made their presentation online (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia) and unfortunately the Romanian candidate was not able to participate.

Thanks to the high-tech equipment available at the University of Novi Sad, the students that were attending the contest online were able to follow the presentation that were made in Novi Sad and then to attend the full contest. The jury was composed of 11 jury members coming from Austria, Brazil, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and The Netherlands all attending physically the CYSC-2021 conference in Novi Sad, as invited speakers or senior scientist participating to the conference.

The result of the contest was then announced by Andraž Kocjan, ECerS Young Ceramists and Training Working Group leader, during the YCN Gala Dinner that was organised on the evening of the 22nd October in the restaurant of the Fontana Hotel. The 3 first winners were:

1. Maximilian Staudacher from Lehrstuhl für Struktur- und Funktionskeramik, Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria: “Biaxial strength testing: A comparison of the Ball-on-Three-Balls- and the Ring-on Ring-Test”

2. Else Ellermann from University of Cambridge, UK: “Understanding the Effect of Surface Properties of Bioactive Ceramics on Protein Attachment and Angiogenesis”

3. Chloé Goutagny from Belgian Ceramic Research Centre, Mons, Belgium: “Additive Manufacturing of β-TCP using the Stereolithography technology: Suspension preparation and process optimisation”

They all receive a prize money but also free participation to the 2022 ECerS Ceramics in Europe conference that will be organised from 10th to 14th July 2022 in Krakow, Poland. The first winner, Maximilian Staudacher, will also make his presentation again during the Award session, on Wednesday 13th July.

Congratulations to the winners but also to all the students who competed for their very high-quality presentations!

ECerS would also like to thank prof. Vladimir V. Srdić and dr. Ivan Stijepović from University of Novi Sad, Serbia for their big help in organising the event but also to the 11 jury members:

1.       Louis Winnubst, University of Twente, The Netherlands

2.       Marija Milanović, University of Novi Sad, Serbia

3.       Branko Matović, Institute for Nuclear Sciences “Vinca”, Belgrade, Serbia

4.       Andraž Kocjan, Jožef Stefan Institute Ljubljana, Slovenia

5.       Lukacs Vlad-Alexandru, Romania

6.       Lucjan Kozielski, AGH – University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland

7.       Ivan Stijepović, University of Novi Sad, Serbia

8.       Julian Walker, Norway Technical University, Norway

9.       Raul Bermejo, Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria

10.     Salomao Morales Da Silva Junior, Brazil

11.     Nikola Kanas, Serbia

This event was sponsored by the JECS Trust