Swiss Summer School 2021: Catalysis and Sustainable Chemistry

The Swiss Summer Schools, also referred to as Villars Summer Schools, are multi-day out of town courses for MSc, PhD and postdoctoral students with a focus on chemical synthesis. They offer a platform to students for the scientific exchange with peers and with experts in the field from academia and industry. Students are welcome to actively involve themselves by presenting a poster or a short communication on their research.

The focus of this edition of the series of the Summer Schools on Trends in Organic Synthesis is on Catalysis and Sustainability. It is a joint event with the NCCR Catalysis and will be held in Les Diablerets, in the beautiful Alpes Vaudoises region above Lake Geneva.

The team of Summer School Lecturers is built from experts in different areas of catalysis and sustainability, representing different academic institutions (Caltech, Princeton, Ben Gurion University, the University of Bern, and ETH Zürich). In addition, lectures presented by researchers from Syngenta, Siegfried, Merck/Sigma-Aldrich, Novartis, IBM Research and Sulzer will illustrate the importance of synthesis, catalysis and sustainability in industry.

The Villars Summer Schools have a long tradition and date back to the séminaires du 3ième cycle of the 1960ies. Until recently, they were organized by a consortium of universities (Bern, Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Genève, and the EPFL; later joined by the University of Zürich) and are now held as a national event organized by the Swiss Chemical Society as part of its SCS Seminar Series. The Swiss Summer School 2019 in Villars was the first event organized by the Swiss Chemical Society.

Thank you all for a wonderful experience! Here (button) is the report on the 2021 Summer School as published in the December issue of CHIMIA