Eurosensors school

EUROSENSORS School on “Fundamentals of Sensor Science and Technology”

Satel­lite event EUROSENSORS Conference

The basic idea of this ini­tia­tive, pro­mot­ed dur­ing the EUROSENSORS XII Con­fer­ence in Southamp­ton and suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed at fol­low­ing EUROSENSORS Con­fer­ences has its roots in the neces­si­ty of keep­ing alive the deep cul­tur­al aspects of sen­sors, sen­sor sys­tems, trans­duc­ers, actu­a­tors and microsys­tems. The increas­ing inter­est in the field and the fast tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments could cause us to for­get impor­tant aspects of the sen­sor sci­ence domain and pos­si­bly to over­look impor­tant the­o­ret­i­cal achieve­ments. A sound bal­ance between tech­nol­o­gy and sen­sor the­o­ry that includes of course, sen­sor sci­ence, inter­face elec­tron­ics, etc, should always be sought in order to opti­mize a healthy growth of the knowl­edge in both sen­sor sci­ence and technology.

The first six edi­tions of the school (Delft 1999, Kopen­hagen 2000, Prague 2002, Guimares 2003, Rome 2004 and Barcelona 2005) were a 2‑day event (Sat­ur­day aftern­non + Sun­day) and cov­ered six-sev­en top­ics. From the sev­enth edi­tion (Gote­borg, 2006) it was decid­ed to lim­it the school to a 1 day event on Sun­day. The num­ber of top­ics is there­fore reduced to 4–5.
These edi­tions were orga­nized by Arnal­do D’Amico and Lina Sar­ro with assis­tance from the Eurosen­sors local orga­niz­ing committee.

In 2001 and 2007, as Eurosen­sors was joined with Trans­duc­ers and reg­u­lar tuto­ri­als were offered, the school was not held.

In 2006 we pro­posed that the school should be an inte­gral part of the Eurosen­sors con­fer­ence. Thus the orga­ni­za­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty lies on the local orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee, while D’Amico and Sar­ro have an advi­so­ry role.

The fol­low­ing suggestions/proposal are based on our expe­ri­ence of the past years.
For a suc­cess­ful orga­ni­za­tion of the school it is nec­es­sary to:

• iden­ti­fy poten­tial top­ics cov­er­ing inter­est­ing and use­ful aspects of the sen­sor science
• find suit­able lec­tur­ers (i.e. peo­ple that are not only experts on the top­ic, but also have excel­lent teach­ing skills)
• col­lect slides of all lec­tures in time to pre­pare a book to be dis­trib­uted to par­tic­i­pants on site

On the logistics/ admin­is­tra­tion side the fol­low­ing should be done:

• post infor­ma­tion on the school on the web­site asap
• include par­tic­i­pa­tion to the school as option on the reg­is­tra­tion form
• orga­nize a suit­able lec­ture room
• orga­nize a lunch for atten­dees and teachers
• pre­pare a certificate/proof of atten­dance for par­tic­i­pants (some need it for expens­es declaration)

As the school is most­ly meant for (but obvi­ous­ly not lim­it­ed to) PhD and young researchers, the costs should be kept to a min­i­mum. Thus no com­pen­sa­tion for lec­tur­ers is avail­able (the fee cov­ers the lunch, lec­ture mate­r­i­al and pos­si­bly the lec­ture room rent). In light of this, invit­ed speak­ers, Eurosen­sors Fel­lows, TPC mem­bers or peo­ple that would most cer­tain­ly attend can be good candidates.

For the atten­dees to ben­e­fit the most, it is impor­tant that the lec­tur­er is aware that his/her lec­ture should address the fun­da­men­tals of the giv­en top­ic and pos­si­bly include at the end some recent devel­op­ments, poten­tial appli­ca­tions etc.

Sug­ges­tions for top­ics and lec­tur­ers can be giv­en to the school orga­niz­ers by all Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and TPC mem­bers.
After a first selec­tion is, D’Amico and Sar­ro would be more than hap­py to advice the local orga­niz­ing committee/conference chair on it. If any addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion is required, please let us know.

We hope this very use­ful and impor­tant event will be con­tin­ued for the com­ing Eurosen­sors edi­tions and that the future orga­niz­ers will enjoy the school as a use­ful and prof­itable expe­ri­ence as we did.

Arnal­do D’Amico
Lina Sar­ro