60th international conference for students of physics and natural sciences “Open Readings 2017” took place on 14-17th of March, 2017 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The conference gathered more than 300 presenters from 20 different countries all-around Europe while creating an interactive platform for sharing knowledge, scientific results and best practices in the fields of physics and natural sciences.
The four day conference was full of activities, including but not limited to the mentioned students’ oral and poster sessions, workshop on scientific publishing and discussion on career in science, but, of course, the highlight of the conference were the invited speakers – world-known scientists, top of the top in their fields:
- Prof. Ben Feringa (Netherlands) – 2016 Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, h-index: 103;
- Prof. John Ellis (UK) – one of the most known theoretical physicist working at CERN, h-index: 150;
- Prof. Philip Russell (Germany) – former president of OSA and leader in the field of photonic crystal fibers, h-index: 86;
- Prof. Michael Graetzel (Switzerland) – Millennium Technology Prize laureate, 3rd most cited chemist in the world, h-index: 207;
- Prof. Xi-Cheng Zhang (USA) – one of the best known researchers of THz technologies, h-index: 70;
- Prof. Eugenio Coccia (Italy) – co-author of the gravitational waves discovery, h-index: 43;
- Prof. Naomi Halas (USA) – one of the leaders in the field of plasmonics and the use of nanoparticles in cancer treatment, h-index: 106.
- Prof. Robin Lovell-Badge (UK) – active scientist and policy maker in the field of genetics, h-index: 66;
- Prof. Frederik Clayessens (UK) – novel material creator by using various light sources, h-index: 23;
The importance to motivate young minds to pursue their scientific path is of an extreme importance, the students are the force who is pushing the motors of science. It seems that taking attention of over 5000 science enthusiasts coming to the conference venue and watching lectures online – let’s us make the assumption the conference did it’s job. It was the biggest scientific conference in the Lithuania.
The full program and more pictures of the event can be found at: http://www.openreadings.eu/