Events

Kick-off Meeting

The kick-off meeting’s primary goal was to introduce the ACCELERATOR project activities in a number of steps targeting different interest groups. The whole event started off with a Ceremonial Opening introducing the project objectives to an audience composed of scientists from the CATRIN research institute. A significant proportion of the audience was created by Palacký University representatives, representatives of the regional government, and potential industrial partners from pharmaceutical companies.   

The meeting was opened with a short speech made by the General Director of CATRIN, Pavel Banáš. Pavel Banáš introduced Alexander Dömling to the audience, alongside describing the expected benefits this collaboration should bring during the course of the five-year implementation and accenting the interdisciplinarity of the ERA Chair grant. One of the missions of the ACCELERATOR project is to interconnect the three CATRIN’s divisions (RCPTM, CRH, IMTM). Prof. Dömling continued to provide more details about his research history, also outlining the major goals of his project. The other CATRIN major representatives that followed up on Prof. Dömling’s talk were Prof. Radek Zbořil (CATRIN-RCPTM), the Founding Director of RCPTM, who explained the ACCELERATOR’s interconnections with nanotechnologies. Marián Hajdúch from CATRIN-IMTM introduced the project collaboration from the perspective of biomedicine and Lukáš Spíchal (CATRIN-CRH), one of the most prominent CRH’s researchers, explained the project goals from the standpoint of biotechnologies.

The programme continued with a tour of the RCPTM and CRH laboratories. This part of the programme was aimed at participants who had never been introduced to CATRIN’s research before. The tour was guided by Prof. Zbořil and dr. Spíchal. The audience were taken to different labs and were explained to how the ACCELERATOR research will be implemented in general and what each part of the CATRIN Institute will do in relation to the project.

In the afternoon, the programme continued with a presentation by the Project Adviser, the European Commission. This presentation was aimed at CATRIN’s management/administration staff members that will be either directly or indirectly responsible for implementing the project, in compliance with the set rules, as well as at the particular researchers participating in the project activities.

The last part of the programme was dedicated to scientific talks addressing the future research in detail.

This part was aimed at researchers from the participating CATRIN divisions. Alexander Dömling introduced the concept of Innovative Chemistry in greater detail, targeting colleagues he will be mostly collaborating with. Marián Hajdúch took a close look at biomedicine and the interconnection with the ACCELERATOR project. Lukáš Spíchal summarized the major goal as an expert in biotechnologies. Radek Zbořil explained into detail how this project will be implemented from the perspective of nanotechnologies. Pavel Banáš provided overview of the project Work Packages, Milestones and Deliverables, also setting internal deadlines for meeting all the specified requirements.