Materials for Energy: Interdisciplinary Online Training

Workshop

Materials have always been the basis and starting point for new technologies and profound changes in society. Future energy technologies will place increasing demands on materials performance. Educational approaches in this field need to be more interdisciplinary in character to meet the requirements of recent developments in materials sciences.

The two-day online workshop focused on different aspects of sustainable materials for energy production. 10 High-ranking international speakers together with 7 AGYA members and alumnae/i trained 45 selected students from 12 countries in the highly innovative field of new materials. Especially in times when access to research institutions is limited and researchers cannot pursue their laboratory research as usual due to pandemic-related shutdowns, the online workshop provided an alternative and interdisciplinary platform for the presentation and discussion of recent research results and developments in the field of material science.

The AGYA workshop established an interdisciplinary network of excellence young researchers and high-profile experts in the field of new materials and energy technologies. Arab and German graduate students from various disciplines with a particular research interest in new materials used in energy technologies participated in the workshop. Both the training and the exchange during the workshop took place online.
Both the trainers and the students very well received the training workshop. Both expressed their wish to maintain the established network and to continue with a workshop series in the next year.

The workshop provided the participants with the following cutting-edge theoretical and methodological knowledge on the research of innovative materials as well as with aspects of outreach and science communication:

• Synthesis and characterization of different types of materials
• Materials development for energy systems
• Working principles of various energy-based materials for future applications
• Design of energy materials – A theoretical point of view
• Outreach and science communication in the field of new materials: working outside the lab